Automatic alert escalation for an information management system

ABSTRACT

Disclosed herein are systems and methods for managing information management operations. The system may be configured to employ a work flow queue to reduce network traffic and manage server processing resources. The system may also be configured to forecast or estimate information management operations based on estimations of throughput between computing devices scheduled to execute one or more jobs. The system may also be configured to escalate or automatically reassign notification of system alerts based on the availability of system alert recipients. Various other embodiments are also disclosed herein.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION(S)

The present application claims priority to and the benefit of U.S.Provisional Application No. 61/945,587, filed Feb. 27, 2014, which ishereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Businesses worldwide recognize the commercial value of their data andseek reliable, cost-effective ways to protect the information stored ontheir computer networks while minimizing impact on productivity.Protecting information is often part of a routine process that isperformed within an organization.

A company might back up critical computing systems such as databases,file servers, web servers, and so on as part of a daily, weekly, ormonthly maintenance schedule. The company may similarly protectcomputing systems used by each of its employees, such as those used byan accounting department, marketing department, engineering department,and so forth.

Given the rapidly expanding volume of data under management, companiesalso continue to seek innovative techniques for managing data growth, inaddition to protecting data. For instance, companies often implementmigration techniques for moving data to lower cost storage over time anddata reduction techniques for reducing redundant data, pruning lowerpriority data, etc.

Enterprises also increasingly view their stored data as a valuableasset. Along these lines, customers are looking for solutions that notonly protect and manage, but also leverage their data. For instance,solutions providing data analysis capabilities, information management,improved data presentation and access features, and the like, are inincreasing demand.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The following figures illustrate aspects of the disclosed invention.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a work flow queue in aninformation management system.

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating a method of managing a work flowqueue in an information management system.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a failure forecast interface.

FIG. 4 is diagram illustrating a correlation graph that can be used tosupport the failure forecast interface of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating a method of providing failureforecast features in an information management system.

FIG. 6 is an organizational diagram illustrating an informationmanagement system alert escalation.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating a method of providing alertescalation services for an information management system.

FIG. 8 is a detailed view illustrating a user interface for alertescalation services for an information management system.

FIG. 9A is a block diagram illustrating an information managementsystem.

FIG. 9B is a detailed view of a primary storage device, a secondarystorage device, and some examples of primary data and secondary copydata.

FIG. 9C is a block diagram of an information management system includinga storage manager, one or more data agents, and one or more mediaagents.

FIG. 9D is a block diagram illustrating a scalable informationmanagement system.

FIG. 9E illustrates certain secondary copy operations of a storagepolicy.

FIGS. 9F-9H are block diagrams illustrating suitable data structuresthat may be employed by the information management system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Overview

With the increasing importance of protecting and leveraging data,organizations simply cannot afford to take the risk of losing criticaldata. Moreover, runaway data growth and other modern realities makeprotecting and managing data an increasingly difficult task. Therefore,there is a need for efficient, powerful, and user-friendly solutions forprotecting and managing data.

Depending on the size of the organization, there are typically severaldata production sources under the purview of tens, hundreds, or eventhousands of employees or other individuals. It is now common for nearlyeach of the numerous employees, students, or other individuals to use orbe assigned a computing device (“client”) for accomplishing daily tasks.Organizations then deploy servers in a variety of hierarchicalconfigurations to provide information management and other services tothe clients.

To increase the productivity of computing devices, such as servers in aninformation management system, a storage manager can be configured tomanage server jobs that are not defined by a data storage policy or adata retention policy. Some embodiments of the present disclosureprovide methods capable of managing servers by queuing and issuingnon-storage policy and non-retention policy jobs to servers, based onserver statuses, e.g., available and/or idle (although the methods canapply to any computing device). By configuring the storage manager toqueue and issue jobs the servers, e.g., using push queue techniques,query traffic from the servers to the storage manager can be reduced.The reduction of server-originating requests can reduce the load on theserver manager, increase the availability of network bandwidth, andallow server processing resources to be dedicated to processing jobsthat are already assigned to the servers.

In addition to managing, e.g., queuing and issuing jobs, a storagemanager may notify a system administrator, or other users, of jobs thatappear as though they will not complete within a prescribed time limit.Some embodiments of the present disclosure describe systems and methodsof forecasting or estimating failures of jobs to complete in a timelymanner, e.g., based on throughput estimations between a transmittingcomputing device and a receiving computing device. Thus, rather thancomparing the number of jobs or amount of data being copied to athreshold to determine a possible failure, the system compares datathroughput (amount of data processed per time unit) to a threshold. Thestorage manager can be configured to generate an alert for notifying auser of the forecasted failure. In response to the alert, the user canremedy the source of the issue causing the alert, or the user canreschedule around the problematic job. By receiving an alert and takingremedial action, a user may be able to prevent network congestion, whichmay impact other users of the network.

Even if the storage manager generates or transmits a system alert to auser, the user may be unavailable to respond to the alert or unable toaddress an otherwise preventable job failure and/or network congestion.Some embodiments of the present disclosure describe systems and methodsof escalating alerts when such an alert recipient is unavailable. Theavailability of an alert recipient can be determined by using systemdirectory tools or can be based on failure to acknowledge the alert.Escalating an alert can include transmitting the alert to other membersor to supervisors of an information technology (“IT”) team orinformation management administration team. By escalating alerts, astorage manager can reduce the risk of system failures going unansweredand can therefore reduce an organization's risk of having an unprotectedinformation system or unprotected computing devices. For example, thestorage manager may be configured to escalate alerts if a storage deviceor storage computing device unexpectedly goes offline; if networkbandwidth drops below a predetermined threshold; or if a scheduled jobis forecasted to fail to complete within a prescribed time limit.

Brief Information Management System Overview

FIG. 1 illustrates work queue management in an information managementsystem 100, according to one embodiment. The information managementsystem 100 includes a variety of different computing devices. Forinstance, as will be described in greater detail herein, the informationmanagement system 100 may include a primary storage subsystem 102, asecondary storage subsystem 104, and a storage manager 106. Together,these components and systems enable users to create, store, andotherwise manage data objects associated with the user.

The primary storage subsystem 102 includes one or more client computingdevices 108 communicatively coupled to one or more primary storagedevices 110. The client computing device 108 can include any number ofelectronic computing devices, such as a desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone, wearable device, vehicle-mounted device or the like.

As illustrated, the client computing device 108 may include one or moredata agents 112 that are configured to manage information generated byor through the use of one or more applications 114 installed on theclient computing device 108. The data agent 112 communicates with theprimary storage device 110, the storage manager 106, and componentswithin the secondary storage system 104 to facilitate the manipulationof and retention of primary data 116 that is located on the primarystorage device 110.

Primary data 116, according to some embodiments, is production data orother “live” data generated by the operating system and otherapplications 114 residing on a client computing device 108. The primarydata 116 is generally stored on the primary storage device(s) 110 and isorganized via a file system supported by the client computing device108. For instance, the client computing device(s) 108 and correspondingapplications 114 may create, access, modify, write, delete, andotherwise use primary data 116. In some cases, some or all of theprimary data 116 can be stored in cloud storage resources.

Primary data 116 is generally in the native format of the sourceapplication 114. According to certain aspects, primary data 116 is aninitial or first stored copy of data generated by the source application114 (e.g., created before any other copies or before at least one othercopy). Primary data 116 in some cases is created substantially directlyfrom data generated by the corresponding source applications 114.

The primary data 116 may sometimes be referred to as a “primary copy” inthe sense that it is a discrete set of data. However, the use of thisterm does not necessarily imply that the “primary copy” is a copy in thesense that it was copied or otherwise derived from another storedversion

The primary storage device 110 can serve the storage needs of the clientcomputing device 108 in any one of a number of storage deviceimplementations. For example, the primary storage device 110 can be amechanical or solid-state hard drive, a network accessible storagedevice (“NAS”), or the like.

While the primary storage system 102 depicts a single client computingdevice 108 and a single primary storage device 110, the primary storagesubsystem 102 can include tens, hundreds, or thousands of clientcomputing devices 108 and primary storage devices 110. The primarystorage subsystem 102 can represent some or all of the computing devicesused to support productivity of a business, educational institution, orother organization valuing the protection, retention, and maintenance ofelectronically generated information.

Additional details regarding various exemplary embodiments of thecomponents of the primary storage subsystem 102 are provided below inthe discussion associated with FIGS. 9A-9H.

For recovery and/or regulatory compliance purposes, it may be useful togenerate copies of the primary data 116. Accordingly, the secondarystorage subsystem 104 includes one or more secondary storage computingdevices 118 and one or more secondary storage devices 120 configured tocreate and store one or more secondary copies 124 (inclusive of copies124 a-124 n) of the primary data 116 and associated metadata.

Creation of secondary copies 124 can help in search and analysis effortsand meet other information management goals, such as: restoring dataand/or metadata if an original version (e.g., of primary data 116) islost (e.g., by deletion, corruption, or disaster); allowingpoint-in-time recovery; complying with regulatory data retention andelectronic discovery (e-discovery) requirements; reducing utilizedstorage capacity; facilitating organization and search of data;improving user access to data files across multiple computing devicesand/or hosted services; and implementing data retention policies.

The client computing devices 108 access or receive primary data 116 andcommunicate the data, e.g., over the communication pathways 126, forstorage in the secondary storage device(s) 120. The communicationpathways 126 can include one or more private and/or public networks,including local area networks, wide area networks, campus area networks,metropolitan area networks, and the like.

A secondary copy 124 can comprise a separate stored copy of applicationdata that is derived from one or more earlier-created, stored copies(e.g., derived from primary data 116 or another secondary copy 124).Secondary copies 124 can include point-in-time data, and may be intendedfor relatively long-term retention (e.g., weeks, months or years),before some or all of the data is moved to other storage or isdiscarded. Types of secondary copies can include full backup,incremental backup, auxiliary copy, etc.

The secondary storage computing devices 118 provide intermediaryinterface between the secondary storage devices 120 and other componentsof the information management system 100. Each secondary storagecomputing device 118 may be associated with or may include a media agent122 to facilitate inter-component communications within the informationmanagement system 100. The media agent 122 configured to communicatewith the storage manager 106 and with the data agent 112 of the clientcomputing device 108. The media agent 122 also interfaces with thesecondary storage devices 124 to copy, read, analyze, transfer orotherwise manipulate secondary copies 124.

Additional details regarding various exemplary embodiments of thecomponents of the secondary storage subsystem 104 are provided below inthe discussion associated with FIGS. 9A-9H.

The storage manager 106 is centralized storage and/or informationmanager that is configured to perform certain control functions. Thestorage manager 106 is communicatively coupled between the primarystorage subsystem 102 and the secondary storage subsystem 104 via thecommunication channel(s) 126. The storage manager 106 facilitatestransfer of data between the primary storage subsystem 102 and thesecondary storage subsystem 104. For example, the storage manager 106may instruct the data agent 112 to retrieve some or all of primary data116. The storage manager 106 may then initiate communications betweenthe data agent 112 and one or more media agents 122 to transfer some orall of the primary data 116 to one or more of the secondary storagedevices 120. According to some embodiments, the storage manager 106 mayemploy a software module, such as a jobs agent 128, to initiate,facilitate, schedule, and otherwise manage communications between thedata agent 112 and the media agents 122.

The storage manager 106 can be configured to support additionalinformation management operations. For example, the storage manager 106may include an index 130 or may interface with the index 130. The index130 can be a database or other data structure that can be used to trackand/or schedule information management policies, e.g., storage policiesand retention policies. For example, each time the storage manager 106executes a transfer of information from the primary storage subsystem102 to the secondary storage subsystem 104, the storage manager 106 canupdate the index 130 to reflect the operation. The storage manager 106can be configured to update the index 130 to reflect all informationmanagement operations that have occurred or that are scheduled to beexecuted in the information management system 100. For example, inaccordance with a data retention policy, the jobs agent 128 mayreference the index 130 prior to transferring a secondary copy 124 fromone secondary storage computing device 120 to another slower and lesscostly secondary storage device 120.

The information management system 100 may constitute a singleinformation management systems cell of multiple information managementsystem cells operated by a particular business, educational institution,or other organization. The storage manager 106 may include and utilize amanagement agent 132 to communicate with other similar storage managersof other information management system cells. When needed or requested,the storage manager 106 can acquire or query other storage managers orother information management system cells for information satisfying thecriteria of the queries. Upon receipt of information requested fromother information management system cells, the storage manager 106 mayupdate one or more databases, tables, data structures, or the like,e.g., the index 130.

While distributing functionality amongst multiple computing devices canhave certain advantages, in other contexts it can be beneficial toconsolidate functionality on the same computing device. As such, invarious other embodiments, one or more of the components shown in FIG. 1as being implemented on separate computing devices are implemented onthe same computing device. In one configuration, a storage manager 106,one or more data agents 112, and one or more media agents 122 are allimplemented on the same computing device. In another embodiment, one ormore data agents 112 and one or more media agents 122 are implemented onthe same computing device, while the storage manager 106 is implementedon a separate computing device.

Work Queues

The storage manager 106 can be configured to manage various jobs typeswithin the information management system 100 using different resources.For example, the storage manager 106 can categorize all jobs or tasks tobe performed in the information management system 100 into one or moregroups, types, or categories. Then, the storage manager can allocateparticular types of jobs to particular storage manager resources, suchas processes. For example, the storage manager can allocate a firstgroup of processes 134 to jobs for executing a data storage and/or dataretention policy, and can allocate a second group of processes 136 tojobs for executing other jobs related to the information managementsystem 100. Jobs associated with the first group processes 134 caninclude tasks such as analyzing data, backing up data, restoring data,retaining data, and the like. Jobs associated with the second group ofprocesses 136 can include jobs associated with maintenance of theinformation management system 100 (e.g., releases of software updates),security maintenance (e.g., security patches, virus scans, etc.), andinformation management system policy synchronizations (e.g., changes tojob preemption policies, changes to job priorities, updates to alertdefinitions, etc.). The jobs associated with the first group ofprocesses 134, e.g., those used for executing the storage/retentionpolicy, may be impractical to manage from components other than thestorage manager 106 within the information management system 100.Therefore, these jobs can be managed and issued by the storage manager106, in accordance with data storage and data retention policies, storedand maintained by the storage manager 106. The first group of processes134 can be interchangeably referred to as information managementoperation or system processes 134, and the second group of processes 136(although different from the first group of processes 134) can beinterchangeably referred to as information management system oroperation processes 136.

By contrast, the jobs or tasks associated with the second group ofprocesses 136 may traditionally be initiated from and managed by serversor client devices, other than the storage manager 106, within theinformation management system 100. Such an implementation of taskmanagement can have several disadvantages. In the case where the storagemanager 106 manages tens, hundreds, or thousands of client computingdevices 108 and secondary storage computing devices 118, receivingrequests for updates or task authorization from all of these devices inan unscheduled manner can result in a bombardment of the storage manager106. Additionally, when the client computing devices 108 and/or thesecondary storage computing devices 118 dedicate processing resources,e.g. CPU cycles and memory, to request approval or information for jobsfrom the storage manager 106, then these resources are at leastpartially unavailable to perform backup, restoration, and retentionoperations. Additionally, each request consumes bandwidth on thecommunication pathways 126 that communicatively couple the components ofthe information management system 100.

Configuring the storage manager 106 to manage and issue jobs associatedwith the second group of processes 136 can take advantage of the storagemanager 106 holistic awareness of the statuses of the computing devicewithin the primary storage subsystem 102 and the secondary storagesubsystem 104. For example, since the storage manager 106 already usesthe jobs agent 128 for tracking the status of various jobs within theprimary storage subsystem 102 and the secondary storage subsystem 104,the storage manager 106 is positioned to efficiently issuenon-storage/retention policy jobs to the computing devices of theprimary storage subsystem 102 and secondary storage subsystem 104 basedon the operational statuses of the computing devices. For example, thestorage manager 106 may be configured to issue a management systemupdate job to a secondary storage computing device 118 if the secondarystorage computing device is online, available, and is not presentlyscheduled to execute a job within a data storage or retention policy.

The storage manager 106 may use various work queues to manage (e.g.,track and schedule) jobs in the information management system 100. Forexample, the storage manager 106 may manage the first group of processes134 using a first work queue 138. The storage manager 106 may manage thesecond group of processes 136 using a second work queue 140.

The first work queue 138 may be any form of data structure, such as atable, that includes a number of columns identifying aspects of a job,such as the job ID, the device ID, a media agent identifier, the type ofjob, and the job status, etc. Although not shown, the first work queue138 can also include additional columns, such as a data agentidentification, errors, and a numerical indication of job progression.The first work queue 138 may also include a number of rows 142, eachassociated with a single job or task.

The second work queue 140 may only include jobs that are associated withthe second group of processes 136. The second work queue 140 may includecolumns such as job ID, device ID, device status, job type, and jobstatus. The second work queue 140 may be organized into one or more rowsof tasks 144. As described above, the second group of processes 136 mayinclude jobs or tasks that are associated with the informationmanagement system 100 but that are not directly related to backing updata, restoring data, and/or retaining data. In other words, the secondgroup of processes 136 can be associated with jobs that do notaccomplish execution of data storage/retention policies, that areunrelated to the data storage/retention policies, or that are onlytangentially related to the data storage/retention policies of theinformation management system. Some of the jobs managed by the secondwork queue 140 can include, among other things, installation of securitypatches, synchronization of information management system policies,media agent updates, data agent updates, or other software updates, inaccordance with embodiments.

The storage manager 106 may issue jobs to the media agents 122 based onthe status of the devices that the media agents 122 control. Forexample, the storage manager my wait to distribute a job shown in thefirst of the rows 144 of the second work queue 140, based on a busystatus for a computing device, e.g., computing device 1. The storagemanager 106 may queue a job or task until a status of the computingdevice becomes available or idle. In one embodiment, computing device 1(shown in the second work queue 140) represents the secondary storagecomputing device 118 a or the client computing device 108. Forrelatively more important jobs scheduled in the second work queue 140,the storage manager 106 may preempt jobs scheduled in the first workqueue 138. For example, the storage manager 106 may wait until one, two,or just a few jobs remain scheduled for a particular device in the firstwork queue 138 before preemptively issuing or prioritizing a job in thesecond work queue 140 over the job(s) remaining in the first work queue138 for a particular device.

When computing devices have an offline status, the storage manager 106suspends unidirectional communications to those devices. The storagemanager 106 reduces incoming traffic by unidirectionally issuing anddistributing jobs from second work queue 140, e.g., using a push queuemechanism, to media agents 122 and data agents 112. To further reducenetwork traffic, the storage manager 106 may be configured to suspendissuing jobs when a computing device of a media agent 122 or data agent112 has an offline status. The storage manager 106 could continuously orperiodically ping or transmit messages to an offline computing device todetermine when the computing device comes online. However, a morenetwork efficient implementation of the information management system100 may be to configure some of all of the computing devices to notifythe storage manager 106 of a status change from offline to online. Atsuch point, the storage manager 106 can update the second work queue 140to reflect the current device's status, and may resume distributing jobsfrom the second work queue 140.

Other devices within the information management system 100 may also beconfigured to execute some or all of the second group of processes 136,in addition to the first group of processes 134. The first group ofprocesses 134 and the second group of processes 136 may representportions of information management software that is installed on orexecuted by the computing devices of the information management system100. Hence, the first group of processes 134 and the second group ofprocesses 136 are illustrated in FIG. 1 as being included in the clientcomputing device(s) 108 and the secondary storage computing device(s)118, in addition to the storage manager 106.

By configuring the storage manager 106 to manage jobs that may have beenaccomplished or managed by the client computing devices 108 or by thesecondary storage computing devices 118, the information managementsystem 100 may run more efficiently and with less issue. In particular,the storage manager 106 may protect itself from bombardment by job ortask requests, network traffic on the channel 126 may be reduced, andthe client computing devices 108 and the secondary storage computingdevices 118 may focus their processing resources on executing jobs forthe data storage and retention policies. Although the embodimentsdescribed above describe a work queue of administrative tasks managed bythe storage manager 106, a similar work queue can be executed by one ormore secondary storage computing devices 118 to reduce bombardment ofthese computing devices by subordinate computing devices, e.g., clientcomputing devices 108. In such an embodiment, the client computingdevices 108 are configured to wait for the secondary storage computingdevices 118 to initiate jobs or tasks, rather than pinging or queryingthe secondary storage computing devices 118 job request updates. Theadvantageous result of such a configuration may further reduce networktraffic, protect servers from bombardment by requests, and enable theclient computing devices 108 to dedicate processing resources tonon-managerial jobs or tasks.

FIG. 2 illustrates a method 200 of managing a work queue of jobs, in aninformation management system, that are different than jobs defined in adata storage policy or a data retention policy. The method 200 may beexecuted in a system similar to the information management system 100,in accordance with one embodiment.

In block 202, a storage manager receives jobs from the Internet, from asoftware program, or from system administrators. The jobs are tasksother than the jobs defined by a data storage or data retention policy.The jobs can include tasks related to security patches, softwareupdates, and synchronizing configuration changes throughout theinformation management system, according to various embodiments.

In block 204, the storage manager updates at least two work queues ofjobs with the received jobs. In a first work queue, the storage managerorganizes and schedules jobs or tasks that are associated with executinga data storage or data retention policy. A second work queue isassociated with jobs or tasks that are of a different type than the jobsof the first work queue. For example, the jobs of the second work queueare unrelated to or are tangentially related to the jobs defined by thedata storage or data retention policy, but execution of the jobs of thesecond work queue is needed for the information management system tooperate or function.

At block 206, the storage manager updates the work queues with thestatuses of computing devices to which the jobs are scheduled forassignment or distribution. The statuses of the computing devices of theinformation management system can include, for example, offline, online,available, busy, processing the job, job failed, job recently completed,job paused, or the like.

At block 208, the storage manager issues the jobs of the two or morework queues in accordance with priority settings for the jobs and basedat least in part on a current status the computing devices to which thejobs are distributed. By configuring the storage manager to distributejobs other than the jobs defined by data storage and retention policies,the storage manager can more efficiently manage network traffic, canprotect itself from being bombarded by requests, and can supervise theuse of processing resources in the computing devices of the informationmanagement system.

Throughput Failure Forecasting

In the event that one or more queued, scheduled, or issued jobs cannotbe complete by a computing device within an allocated timeframe, it maybe useful to alert or notify a system administrator or other users ofthe system deficiency. Issued jobs can fail to complete in a timelymanner for a number of reasons. For example, the amount of dataassociated with the job can unexpectedly increase or spike, such that apredetermined window time becomes inadequate to complete a datatransfer, given a fixed network throughput or bandwidth. As anotherexample, the network throughput, i.e., rate or amount of data transferover time, can diminish unexpectedly and/or significantly enough torender an allocated window of time inadequate to transfer a fixed amountof data between computing devices. As another example, a transmitting orreceiving computing device involved in the execution of a particular jobmay crash, stall, or otherwise become inoperable to continuetransferring or receiving the data associated with the execution of ajob. In any of these scenarios, as well as in other potential scenarios,notification to appropriate personnel may enable a system or ITadministrator to remedy any hardware or software issues that present anobstacle in executing a particular job. When information managementsystem operations fail to occur during regularly scheduled windows oftime, the operations failure can propagate throughout an informationmanagement system to cause further delays, similar to a traffic jam. Theoperations failure can also expose an organization's information to anundesirable amount of risk of loss while the organization's informationis not being completely or partially backed up. Described hereafter aresystems and methods for forecasting failures in information managementsystem operations, in accordance with various embodiments of thedisclosure.

FIG. 3 illustrates an information management system 300 that may beconfigured to provide an operation failure forecast interface 302. Theoperation failure forecast interface 302 may enable a user to set upparameters for forecasting information management operation failures andfor generating alerts for the forecasted failures. The operation failureforecast interface 302 may be a web-based interface hosted by thestorage manager 106, and may be accessible from any computing device,internal or external to the information management system 300. Accordingto one implementation, the operation failure forecast interface 302includes an operation window definition 304, an operation selection menu306, a throughput estimation menu 308, an alert notification time 310,an alert selection menu 312, a default action menu 314, and a stop menu316. The various windows, menus, and parameters illustrated in theoperation failure forecast interface 302 enable users to customize thefailure forecast feature, in accordance with the particular needs orpreferences of a system administrator or other users of the informationmanagement system 300, as described below. While one example of anoperation failure forecast interface 302 is shown, many other interfacesare possible.

System administrators regularly schedule resource intensive informationmanagement operations to coincide with the convenience of the systemadministrator and, more importantly, with the availability of networkthroughput. As used herein, network throughput includes a rate of datatransfer from one computing device to another. Network throughputincludes both the bandwidth of network communication channels and theprocessing availability and/or speeds of the computing devices involvedin the data transfer. The network throughput may be measured end-to-endfrom a source device, through one or more networks, to a destination ortarget device. In other words, the network throughput is a measurementof the rate by which data is 1) processed by the source computing devicefor transfer over the network, 2) transferred from the source computingdevice to the target computing device, and/or 3) processed ortemporarily stored by target computing device after receipt over thenetwork. The particular data transfer or operation may have start timelimitations that are based on the completion of other jobs, based onheavy network bandwidth usage, and/or based on an availability of othersystem components. An information management operation may have stoptime limitations that are based on other scheduled informationmanagement operations, scheduled network maintenance, or an otherwiseupcoming need for network resources. The operation failure forecastinterface 302 provides users with an option of defining a particularoperation window 304. As illustrated, the operation window 304 may beused to define a day for an operation, a duration for the operation, andan end time for the operation. The day for the operation may be definedin terms of days of the week, e.g., Sunday to Saturday, days of themonth, days of a year, or the like. The duration option may also bedefined by any one of a number of duration parameters, such as seconds,minutes, hours, days, or the like. The time may be displayed in 24-hourcycles or 12-hour cycles. Having the end time and the duration definedin the operation window 304, a need for a start time definition does notexist. However, in some embodiments, the operation window 304 includes astart time definition, in addition to, or in lieu of one or more of theother parameters illustrated.

In the operation menu 306, the operation failure forecast interface 302allows a user to define the type of information management operation toapply the failure forecast alert to. The operation menu 306 can includea drop-down menu or any other suitable mode of option selectioninterface. The operation menu 306 may be populated with, for example, abackup copy, a disaster recovery copy, a compliance copy, an auxiliarycopy, an archive copy, or the like. The operation menu 306 may alsoallow a user to select to more granular operation options, such as fullbackup, incremental backup, synthetic backup, or the like.

In some embodiments, upon selection of a particular operation from theoperation menu 306, the operation failure forecast interface 302displays a recommended duration of an operation window based on previousinformation management operations. For example, if the user allocatesone hour to perform a full backup of a 10 TB computing system, when aprevious similar operation consumed 10 hours, the operation failureforecast interface 302 may notify the user of the durations of previoussimilar operations that are based on timetables of operation histories.In some embodiments, the storage manager 106 stores tables of operationhistories in the index 130.

The operation failure forecast interface 302 provides the throughputestimation menu 308 to allow users to select from a number of throughputestimation techniques. The throughput estimation menu 308 is illustratedas a drop-down menu, but can just as easily be implemented as a textbox, a plurality of check boxes, radio buttons, or other graphicalinterface elements. The throughput estimation menu 308 illustrates atleast three techniques that can be used by the storage manager toestimate the throughput of an information management operation. Thetechniques include a previous jobs technique, a window of timetechnique, and a graphical correlation technique. Each of these threetechniques are described herein below.

According to one embodiment, the storage manager 106 estimatesthroughput for a job using throughput data from one or more previousjobs. The one or more previous jobs used in the estimation can beselected as a sample set for having varying degrees of relationship orcorrespondence with the operation selected in the operation menu 306. Asa first example, one or more jobs that immediately preceded theselection of the job from the operation window 304 can be used toprovide a current reflection of throughput within the informationmanagement system 300. As another example, the one or more jobs can befurther filtered to more closely correlate with the job selected in theoperation menu 306 by averaging one or more jobs that were executedbetween the same computing devices as the job selected in the operationmenu 306. As yet another example, the one or more previous jobs used forthe estimation of throughput can be estimated based on: averagethroughput of a same type of job (e.g., average of a number ofincremental backups, full backups, etc.), time of operation of the oneor more previous jobs, day of the week during which the jobs wereexecuted, or the like.

Various mathematical functions can also be applied to the one or moreprevious jobs selected for throughput estimation, such as the averagethroughput of the previous jobs. For a more conservative estimation, theslowest or lowest throughput of the previous jobs can be used. For amore optimistic estimation, the fastest or highest throughput of theselected one or more previous jobs can be used to estimate thethroughput of the job selected in the operation menu 306.

According to another embodiment, the storage manager estimatesthroughput for a job selected in the operation menu 306 by relying onthroughput measurements from a particular window of time. The window canbe selected to include the previous day's throughput measurements,several days of throughput measurements, a week, a month, or a year ofdata throughput measurements, or the like. A disadvantage or shortcomingof the window of time technique is that positive and negative spikes orextremes in throughput rates may not be accurately represented by anaverage of throughput measurements. For example, throughput ratesmeasured on a Sunday may be significantly higher than actual ratesachieved near the end of business on a Thursday or Friday when employeesmay be more prone to consume network bandwidth while surfing theInternet. Thus, a window of time that spans a week of throughputmeasurements, may correspond poorly with a particular time selected forthe execution of a job. In one embodiment, the average of the throughputmeasurements is taken within the same window of time that the operationselected in the operation menu 306 is scheduled for. In otherembodiments, the storage manager 106 uses statistical functions toestimate throughput rates associated with a window of time. For example,the storage manager 106 can calculate quartiles for throughput rateswhere the first quartile and second quartile represent throughputs thatare less than the mean or average throughput data during the selectedwindow of time, and the third and fourth quartiles represent throughputrates exceeding the average or mean throughput rates within the windowof time. For a more conservative estimation of throughput, the storagemanager 106 can use the average of the first quartile or the secondquartile of throughput measurements. For more optimistic estimations,the storage manager 106 can use an average of the third quartile or thefourth quartile throughput measurements. Alternatively, the storagemanager 106 can use the lowest throughput rate achieved during thewindow of time. This may provide a system administrator with a“worst-case scenario” estimation of how long a particular job couldreasonably take. Other statistical operations may also be applied. Forexample, the applied statistical functions can include, among otherthings, determining and using one or more standard deviations below orabove the mean throughput measurements.

In accordance with another embodiment, the storage manager 106 mayemploy graphical correlation techniques to estimate throughputs for aselected job. The historical graph of throughput measurements can beused to reflect cyclic variations in throughput over an extended periodof time. For example, the storage manager 106 can be configured tographically or mathematically determine cyclic patterns based on days ofthe week, days of the month, times of the month, months of the year, andthe like.

FIG. 4 illustrates a historic pattern correlation graph 400 thatincludes information that may be used by the storage manager 106 toestimate or forecast network throughput based on cyclical patterns inthroughput measurements over time. The historic pattern correlationgraph 400 may include a y-axis 402 that represents network throughput, arate in terms of data per time (e.g., megabytes or gigabytes persecond). The historic pattern correlation graph 400 also includes anx-axis 404. The x-axis 404 may include more than one reference for whichthroughput averages are taken. For example, the x-axis 404 can identifythe days 406 of a monthly cycle, as well as the occurrence 408 of thedays 406 in the monthly cycle. Because the beginning of a monthly cycle,an end of a monthly cycle, and a middle portion of a monthly cycle mayexhibit similar throughput averages over time, such a representation orcalculation may provide more precise estimations in future throughput.The graph 400 can include average data points that span a monthly cycle,an annual cycle, a semiannual cycle, or the like. As shown, certaintimes within a monthly cycle, e.g., time window for 412 of approximatelyseven days, may exhibit relatively higher or relatively lower throughputaverages or measurements. A system administrator may receivenotification of these relatively higher or lower throughput rates fromthe storage manager 106 while operating the operation failure forecastinterface 302.

The storage manager 108 may correlate historical measurements with arecent snapshot of throughput measurements 414 to forecast upcomingtrends. The storage manager 106 may compare the window of the recentthroughput measurements 414 with the average throughput measurements 410for a particular span of time 416, e.g., seven days. If the time window412 correlates strongly with a section of the average throughputmeasurements 410, the storage manager 106 can rely on, as a forecast orestimate, the subsequently plotted throughput trends depicted by theaverage throughput measurements 410. In the event that the correlationbetween the throughput measurements 414 and the average throughputmeasurements 410 is weak, the storage manager 106 may indicate suchweakness through the operation failure forecast interface 302 and mayrecommend use of alternative throughput estimation technique. Todetermine the correlation between the throughput measurements 414 andthe average throughput measurements 410, the storage manager 106 mayemploy various mathematical operations, such as cross-correlation,correlation, convolution, or the like. An advantage of using historicpattern correlation is that cyclical patterns such as a weekend days orthroughput associated with a middle of the month (versus the beginningor end of the month) may be captured over time and may provide a morereliable predictive indication of throughput.

Returning to FIG. 3, the operation failure forecast interface 302 allowsthe user to determine various additional parameters for generating aforecasted failure alert. For example, the alert threshold 310 allows auser to set a threshold for initiating an alert based on when, after theend time, a job is estimated to complete. For example, if the user wantsto receive an alert if the job is estimated to exceed the end time by 30minutes, then the user would enter 30 minutes in the alert threshold310. The alert selection menu 312 allows the user to select one or moretypes of alert notifications, such as email, SMS, page, and voicemail.The alert selection menu 312 illustrates check boxes and text boxes forentering email addresses, cellular telephone numbers, page numbers, andtelephone numbers. However, other selection menus, such as drop-downboxes, may also be implemented. The default action menu 314 allows auser to determine a default action for the storage manager 106 to takewhen a job is forecasted to not complete by the end time or by the alertthreshold. In one embodiment, the storage manager 106 may be configuredto stop a job once it is determined that the job will not complete bythe end time. In other embodiments, the storage manager 106 can beconfigured to continue to process the job even after an alert has beensent. The stop menu 316 can be used to configure the storage manager 106to stop a job at particular times, relative to the predetermined endtime. For example, the storage manager 106 can be configured to stop aparticular job before the end time, at the end time, or after the endtime, depending upon various factors. Some of the various factors theuser may consider include the priority of the job and network resourceavailability.

The storage manager 106 can also be configured to transmit alerts basedon live throughput measurements between a receiving device and atransmitting device. For example, if the storage manager 106 isperforming a backup operation of primary data 116 into the secondarystorage device 120 n, the storage manager may time or measure the rateat which a portion of a data transfer occurs by timing or measuring adelivery of, for example, a tenth of the overall size of data to bedelivered. To illustrate, if the primary data being backed up is oneterabyte, the storage manager 106 may estimate the throughput from theprimary storage device 110 to the secondary storage device 120 n basedon the rate at which one or more preceding gigabytes of information aresuccessfully transferred. Alternatively, prior to beginning aninformation management operation, the storage device can be configuredto time the transmission of a pilot packet of data to determine apresent estimate of throughput. In some embodiments, throughput ismeasured based on data transferred from a primary storage device 110 toa secondary storage device 120. However, in other embodiments,throughput is measured based on data transmitted from a primary storagedevice 110 to a secondary storage device 118, from a client computingdevice 108 to a secondary storage device 118, from a client computingdevice 108 to the secondary storage device 120, or the like.

The ability to forecast, predict, or estimate a failure in aninformation management operation to complete in a timely manner mayenable a user to proactively trouble-shoot, manage, and/or repair theinformation management system 300. For example, as described above, afailure forecast can enable a system administrator to reschedulesubsequent or preceding operations, can allow the system administratorto justify upgrading network hardware, can enable the systemadministrator to identify particular bottlenecks within the informationmanagement system 300, and/or may generally enable the systemadministrator to more confidently protect a particular organization'sinformation.

FIG. 5 illustrates a method of operating the information managementsystem operation failure forecast features. As discussed above, theability to forecast, predict, or estimate the failure of informationmanagement operations to complete in a timely manner may be a valuabletool to the system administrator or other users of an informationmanagement system.

At block 502, a computing device in an information management systemreceives a threshold, such as a time-related threshold, from a user, bywhich one or more information management operations should be complete.According to various embodiments, the time-related threshold may be setin terms of days of the week, days of a month, days of the year, and interms of the start time, end time, and/or a duration for the informationmanagement operation. In other words, the threshold may define a windowfor which the operation should be completed.

At block 504, a computing device estimates data throughput for aselected information management operation. One or more techniques may beused to estimate and/or measure data throughput including, the use ofprevious jobs, the window of time, and/or cyclic patterns based onhistoric throughput measurements.

At block 506, the computing device estimates a time of completion for aninformation management operation based on the remaining data to betransferred during the information management operation and based on theestimated or measured throughput between a transmitting computing devicein a receiving computing device. The estimated time of completion can becalculated according to Equation 1:time (in seconds)=data (in GB)÷throughput (in GB/s).  (Equation 1)Although the units in Equation 1 are seconds and GB (gigabytes), otherunits can also be used, such as minutes, hours, days, megabytes,terabytes, and the like.

At block 508, the computing device alerts the user if the computingdevice estimates that the information management operation will notcomplete before or by the time-related threshold set by the user, e.g.,Sunday, Dec. 29, 2013 at 11:00 p.m. The computing device can use any oneof a number of methods for transmitting the alert to the user,including, email, text message, a page, an electronic voicemail, or thelike.

Escalating Alerts

The information management system 300, as described above, can beconfigured to generate an alert when an information managementoperation, such as the jobs illustrated in the first work queue 138 andthe second work queue 140 (shown in FIG. 1) are forecasted or estimatedto be incomplete by a predetermined time. The system 300 can beconfigured to generate a number of other alerts related to theinformation management system 300. For example, the storage manager 106,the client computing devices 108, and/or the secondary storage computingdevices 118 can be configured to generate alerts related to applicationmanagement, automatic updates, configuration alerts, job managementalerts, media management alerts, operation management alerts, and thelike. More specifically, the information management system 300 can beconfigured to generate alerts when one or more of the following occur: aMicrosoft exchange mailbox exceeds a particular limit; when softwaredownloads, updates, or upgrades become available; when a storagemanager, client, media agent, or data agent configuration has beenchanged; when a data aging, data classification, data protection, datarecovery, or data verification operation stalls, fails, or completes;when one or more media drives or media libraries go offline unexpectedlyor generate an error; or any other data management event.

Some alerts occur regularly within an information management system andmay be disregarded or addressed at the convenience of the systemadministrator. Other alerts, however, may significantly impact aninformation management system's ability to protect or otherwiseadequately manage an organization's information. For example, alertsassociated with online to offline status changes of secondary storagedevices and storage libraries can be particularly problematic and caninhibit the execution of many important storage and/or retentionoperations. An information management system can be configured togenerate an alert in response to various alert generating events.However, alerts can go unanswered when, for example, alerts are sent toemployees who are: on vacation, no longer employed with theorganization, away from the office, sick, on bereavement leave, orinvolved in any one of a number of personal matters that may hinder orprevent an alert recipient from addressing the underlying event whichcaused the alert. According to one embodiment, an information managementsystem, e.g., information management system 300 can be configured toautomatically escalate an unacknowledged alert up a chain of managementuntil the alert is acknowledged and/or someone takes remedial action toresolve the alert-causing event.

FIG. 6 illustrates an employee hierarchy chart 600 of an organizationthat shows an embodiment of an alert escalation path that a storagemanager 106 can be configured to execute when selected alerts orselected events occur within an information management system. Asdiscussed above, some of the selected events or selected alerts may beassociated with events that prevent or hinder an information managementsystem from protecting an organization's information. The employeehierarchy chart 600 represents a hierarchy of individuals who may beresponsible for maintaining an information management system, e.g.,information management systems 100, 300. While the lowest layer ofemployees in the chart 600 are principally responsible foracknowledging, addressing, and/or remedying alert-causing events,ultimate responsibility for remedying an event-driven alert terminateswith the person at the top of the hierarchy, e.g. an IT divisiondirector.

The employee hierarchy chart 600 may include groups of task specificteams 602 and layers of management 604, according to one embodiment. Thetask specific teams 602 may include teams of IT administrators orpersonnel who are responsible for implementing, maintaining, andupdating the information technology infrastructure and organization. Thetask specific teams 602 may include an information management team 606,a software support team 608, a network support team 610, a hardware team612, and an administrative support team 614. The information managementteam 606 may be responsible for all the tasks associated with ensuringthat data storage and data retention policies are executed adequately.The other teams 608-614 may be responsible for all other IT-relatedtasks within an organization, such as installing new applications andoperating systems, updating and maintaining communications networks,creating new usernames and passwords on clients for employees,purchasing and setting up new computers/clients, and the like.

The storage manager 106 may be configured to elevate specific alertsaccording to a priority, hierarchy, or set of rules. For example, analert priority rule or alert escalation rule related to informationmanagement operation alerts can be defined to be transmitted to variousmembers of the information management team 606, to team supervisors, todivision managers, and finally to the director or to a client. Inpractice, the storage manager 106 can be configured to first transmit analert to team member “A” of the information management team 606.According to some embodiments, team members within the informationmanagement team 606 can receive a designation of team member “A” fordifferent specific alerts or different types of alerts to distributeresponsibility for highest priority alerts among different members ofthe information management team 606. The storage manager 106 may beconfigured to wait for acknowledgment of the alert for a predeterminedamount of time, e.g., 30 minutes. The storage manager 106 may thenescalate the alert to team member “B”, if the alert remainsunacknowledged by the expiration of the alert acknowledgement timelimit. The storage manager 106 can be configured to escalate the alertto other members of the information management team 606, repeatedlyproviding each team member with a predetermined amount of time toacknowledge the alert. If all of the team members of one team fail totimely acknowledge the alert, the storage manager may escalate the alertto a higher layer of management. For example, if the informationmanagement team 606 includes team members A, B, C, and D, the storagemanager 106 may be configured to escalate an unacknowledged alert toteam member “E”, who is the supervisor for the information managementteam 606. In the absence of an acknowledgment from team supervisor E,the storage manager 106 can be configured to escalate the alert to teamsupervisor F and team supervisor G before escalating the alert to thenext level of management. The storage manager 106, in some embodiments,may be configured to escalate unacknowledged alerts to the divisionmanager H, followed by escalating the alert to the division director Iand/or to the client J. In some embodiments, the employee hierarchychart 600 represents a team that is responsible for IT support within anorganization for which the information management operation alert isgenerated. In other embodiments, the employee hierarchy chart 600represents an outside IT services group or firm that has been hired tomanage information management operations and/or information managementoperation alerts for another organization, such as a client J.

Although the employee hierarchy chart 600 illustrates one embodiment ofan alert escalation path, the storage manager 106 can be configured toexecute or escalate alerts using other priority paths or otherescalation rules. For example, according to various embodiments, theamount of time between generating an alert and escalating an alert canbe increased or decreased. Furthermore, the alerts can be transmitted toall members of the lowest level of management 604 prior to escalatingthe alert to a higher level of management. In some embodiments, thestorage manager 106 is configured to escalate an alert within a firstlevel of management for a predetermined duration, e.g., 30 minutes,before escalating the alerts to a higher level of management 604.Additional options for setting and adjusting escalation priority rulesare described below in the discussion related to FIG. 8.

FIG. 7 illustrates a flow diagram of a method 700 that may be executedby a storage manager or other computing device within an informationmanagement system, to escalate information management operation alerts.Escalation of alerts within a hierarchy of a team responsible for aninformation management system can advantageously reduce an amount oftime elapsed between an alert-causing event and acknowledgement (andremedy) of the alert.

At block 702, a computing device receives an indication of a systemfailure, a system slowdown, or other alert-causing informationmanagement system event. For example, a computing device can receive anindication that a secondary storage device has unexpectedly changed froman online status to an offline status. Such an event may prevent aninformation management system from executing backup operations and leavean organization's information partially or fully exposed to a greaterrisk of information loss than the organization may want to exposure to.

At block 704, a computing device determines a point of contact forreceiving an alert. The alert can relate to the indication of systemfailure, system slowdown, or other system event triggered in block 702.The computing device may determine a first point of contact by referringto a set of rules, an employee hierarchical chart, or a service teamhierarchical chart, or by progressing through a list of manually enteredcontacts.

At block 706, the computing device determines the availability of apoint of contact using, for example, directory services. The computingdevice may use directory services such as Microsoft's Active Directoryor Lync, Novell's eDirectory, Apache's ApacheDS, Oracle's OracleInternet Director, OpenDS, or the like. Many directory services includespecific application programming interfaces or are compatible with ageneric directory access protocol, such as LDAP (lightweight directoryaccess protocol). By querying various directory services attributes,e.g., organizationStatus, meetingEndTime, meetingStartTime, andmeetingScope, the computing device can determine whether the point ofcontact is still an employee, is out of the office, is in a meeting, ison a phone call, or is otherwise unavailable to acknowledge and/orrespond to an alert. For example, the computing device can call a homeor mobile telephone number and determine that the point of contact isunavailable if the call is directed to a voice mailbox. In someimplementations, the computing device can be configured to try callingthe point of contact several time, e.g., three calls in 60 minutes,before determining that a point of contact is unavailable. If the pointof contact is deemed unavailable, the method 700 proceeds to block 708.If the point of contact is available, the method proceeds to block 710.

At block 708, the computing device determines a next point of contact toreceive the alert. The computing device can determine the next point ofcontact by referencing one or more tables, organizational tables,charts, or by stepping through an automatically or manually generatedlist of points of contact that may or may not be prioritized byseniority or job function within an organization. For example, if aprimary point of contact is an IT administrator, the next point ofcontact may be that IT administrator's supervisor or manager. In otherembodiments, the computing device may determine that the next point ofcontact is a person having a peer relationship with the primary point ofcontact. After exhausting a list of peers of the primary point ofcontact, the computing device may then be configured to escalate thealert to points of contact having supervisory relationships or roleswith respect to the primary points of contact. Block 708 then proceedsto block 706, where the computing system determines the availability ofthe next point of contact. The method 700 may alternate between block706 and block 708 until an available point of contact is located withinan organization's system.

At block 710, the computing system alerts or notifies the availablepoint of contact of the alert-generating system event. According tovarious embodiments, the computing device may alert the available pointof contact using one or more of any number of electronic resources. Forexample, the computing device may alert the available point of contactusing a pager, a cell phone (e.g., text message and/or an electronicrecording), an email, a home telephone, an RSS feed, or the like. Insome implementations, the computing system alerts more than one personat a time. For example, the computing system can be configured to alerta point of contact and his/her supervisor (such as copying them onemails to the point of contact). The duplicative notification may allowthe point of contact's supervisor to be forewarned of escalating alerts,so as not to be taken by surprise when an alert is escalated to thesupervisor.

After transmitting one or more alerts to the available point of contact,the computing device can be configured to escalate and/or retransmit thealert to a next available point of contact, if the first available pointof contact fails to acknowledge, respond to, and/or remedy the initialevent that generated the alert. The computing device, for example, canhost a web-based interface into which team members of the employeehierarchy chart 600 can login and acknowledge receipt of the alert. Ifthe alert is not acknowledged within a predetermined period of time, themethod 700 proceeds to block 708. If the available point of contactacknowledges the alert within the predetermined time, the method 700ends at block 712.

FIG. 8 illustrates an alert escalation interface 800 hosted/provided byone or more computing devices of the information management systems 100,300, in accordance with various embodiments. In a particular embodiment,the storage manager 106 is configured to host the alert escalationinterface 800 to enable a user to establish or adjust alert escalationpriorities and rules from one or more computing devices within theinformation management system. The alert escalation interface 800 caninclude several windows such as events for escalation window 802,devices to alert window 804, an availability tracking window 806, alocation tracking window 808, and a point of contact priority window810. While one example of the alert escalation interface is shown inFIG. 8, many others are of course possible.

The events for escalation window 802 enables a system administrator orother user to select from one or more events related to an informationmanagement system 100, 300. Based on the selection of events from theevents for escalation window 802, a computing device can be configuredto alert or notify one or more points of contact of equipment failures,job or task failures, performance changes, or the like. Some examples ofevents that may be selected to generate an alert and that may be alertescalated include: a client device not being backed up for a specifiednumber of days; reaching a maximum number of documents/files/data sizefor a data agent; failing to restore a job; low disk space on a client;a device going offline; failing to access or mount storage media; and/orlow disk space available for a software module, such as a media agent.This list of examples is but a few of tens or hundreds of system eventsselectable by a user for alert escalation.

The devices to alert window 804 may allow a user to select a mode bywhich to transmit an alert. As illustrated, electronic modes ofnotification can include a page, cellular phone messages, email, hometelephone, updating a network feed, and the like. Although not shown,various forms of social networking applications may also be used tonotify one or more individuals of an alert. For example, the alertescalation interface 800 may enable the storage manager 106 to hook intovarious forms of social media, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Google Circles,or the like to distribute alerts, if authorized by the list of or byindividual points of contact within the list of points of contact.Additional features related to connecting social networking applicationsmay be incorporated into the alert escalation interface 800, asdisclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Patent Application Publication2013/0263289, titled “INFORMATION MANAGEMENT OF DATA ASSOCIATED WITHMULTIPLE CLOUD SERVICES,” which is hereby incorporated by reference inits entirety.

The availability tracking window 806 may allow the system administratorto define which conditions constitute the availability or unavailabilityof a point of contact. As described above, the storage manager 106 canbe configured to use one or more types of directory services todetermine or track the unavailability of a particular point of contact.For example, some internet protocol (“IP”) telephones and private branchexchange (“PBX”) telephones can connect with directory services toindicate that a point of contact is using the telephone. Throughdirectory services, the storage manager 106 can determine if a point ofcontact has a directory services status of: out of office, in a meeting,on a telephone call, engaged in a calendared event, etc.

The storage manager 106 can also be configured to connect with varioussocial networking applications of the list of points contact and useAPIs associated with the networking applications to determine a statusof a user. For example, a point of contact may use Facebook's locationfeature to specify the location of their post (e.g., a park, a movie,theater, a restaurant, or other attraction). The post with the locationmay include a map or other coordinate-based information that the storagemanager 106 may use to determine the location of the point of contact.Other social networking applications, such as Google Circles,Foursquare, and the like may be similarly manipulated by the storagemanager 106 to determine the location of a point of contact.

The availability tracking window 806 enables a system administrator todefine which status or statuses should be interpreted by the system asunavailable. For example, a point of contact may be unavailable if outof the office or if in a meeting, but may be defined as available if ontelephone call or if an Outlook calendar item is not a meeting orconference, i.e., it is simply an informational reminder or entry.

The location tracking window 808 enables a system administrator toauthorize tracking of one or more persons on a list of points ofcontact. Examples of options can include cell phone location trackingand laptop IP address tracking. It is common for companies and otherorganizations to issue communication devices, such as smart phones, toemployees to enable the employees to be more responsive to the needs ofthe company or organization. Many communication devices are now equippedwith location services that are based on global positioning systems(GPS) and/or wireless service provider-based location tracking, e.g.,using triangulation. An organization may, according to some embodiments,install a program or application onto a work-assigned communicationdevice and configure the program to: 1) acquire a location of thecommunication device; and 2) update directory services with the locationof the communications device, utilizing, for example, web-basedservices. Thus, if enabled, a storage manager 106 may determine that apoint of contact is unavailable, if the point of contact's locationexceeds, for example, a predefined radius from the company's ororganization's location.

In other embodiments, the storage manager 106 may track an IP address ofa laptop or other electronic device assigned to a point of contact in anorganization. One or more programs can be installed on a laptop or otherelectronic device to gather and transmit the device's IP address to adatabase or directory service. The program installed on the laptop mayrun operating system commands, such as “ipconfig”, to determine acurrent IP address of the laptop or other device. The storage manager106 may be configured to use one or more reverse lookup programs orresources to determine the general location of the mobile device.Examples of reverse lookup resources include websites such as“whois.net”, “ipaddress.com”, or the like. Other techniques fordetermining a location of a mobile device are disclosed in commonlyassigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/728,386, titled,“APPLICATION OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT POLICIES BASED ON OPERATION WITHA GEOGRAPHIC ENTITY,” which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

The location tracking window 808 may also enable a system administratoror other user to enable the information management system 100, 300 totrack an employee using a building security system. Many organizationsutilize electronic access means, such as swipe cards, RFID cards,biometric scanners, etc., to monitor and track whether an employee is onthe premises of the organization. Some electronic access means provideaccess to a building, and other electronic access means provide accessto parking facilities associated with an organization's building. Whenauthorized, the storage manager 106 may query the computing system ordata structure used in a building security system to determine if apoint of contact is in a building or parking facility associated with anorganization, prior to sending an alert to the point of contact or priorto escalating an alert beyond the point of contact.

The point of contact priority window 810 enables selection of one of anumber of techniques for determining primary and subsequent points ofcontacts to whom alerts are sent in response to error-related and/orfailure-related events within an information management system. Thepoint of contact priority window 810 may enable a user to select ordetermine an alert escalation rule using manual parameters 812,team-based parameters 814, or using graphically assigned parameters 816.Manual parameters 812 may include a name, username, phone number, oremail address of one or more points of contact for the storage manager106 to incrementally contact. The team-based parameters 814 may allow auser to prioritize teams within an IT department that are contacted inresponse to an alert-causing system event. Graphically assignedparameters 816 may enable a user to graphically assign an order of alertescalation, as described in the discussion related to FIG. 6.

Information displayed in the point of contact priority window 810 can bebased on information acquired from one or more system directories. Forexample, the team-based priority parameters 814 and the graphicallyassigned parameters 816 can be populated by performing an ActiveDirectory query of each subgroup in the IT department and displaying theresults for prioritization by the user. A similar query can be used topopulate the graphically assigned parameters 816. As a result,utilization of system directories, such as Active Directory, enables thealert escalation interface 800 to enable a user to select from andprioritize alert delivery for various members of an IT support team, orother groups responsible for information management operations support.

Hereafter, various example systems are illustrated and described toprovide further example embodiments into which the systems and methodsof FIGS. 1-8 may be implemented. Additionally, systems illustrated inFIGS. 9A-9H, and related discussions, further expound on features ofeach of the components introduced in information management systems 100and 300. Taken together with the disclosure of FIGS. 1-8, the systems ofFIGS. 9A-9H further enable work queue management, estimating orforecasting information management operation failures, and escalation ofinformation management system alerts to resolve system errors, failures,and performance glitches.

Information Management System Overview

Depending on the size of the organization, there are typically many dataproduction sources which are under the purview of tens, hundreds, oreven thousands of employees or other individuals. In the past,individual employees were sometimes responsible for managing andprotecting their data. A patchwork of hardware and software pointsolutions has been applied in other cases. These solutions were oftenprovided by different vendors and had limited or no interoperability.

Certain embodiments described herein provide systems and methods capableof addressing these and other shortcomings of prior approaches byimplementing unified, organization-wide information management. FIG. 9Ashows one such information management system 900, which generallyincludes combinations of hardware and software configured to protect andmanage data and metadata generated and used by the various computingdevices in the information management system 900.

The organization which employs the information management system 900 maybe a corporation or other business entity, non-profit organization,educational institution, household, governmental agency, or the like.

Generally, the systems and associated components described herein may becompatible with and/or provide some or all of the functionality of thesystems and corresponding components described in one or more of thefollowing U.S. patents and patent application publications assigned toCommVault Systems, Inc., each of which is hereby incorporated in itsentirety by reference herein:

-   U.S. Pat. No. 8,285,681, entitled “Data Object Store and Server for    a Cloud Storage Environment, Including Data Deduplication and Data    Management Across Multiple Cloud Storage Sites”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 8,307,177, entitled “Systems And Methods For    Management Of Virtualization Data”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,880, entitled “Modular Backup and Retrieval    System Used in Conjunction With a Storage Area Network”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, entitled “Hierarchical Systems and Methods    for Providing a Unified View of Storage Information”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 7,395,282, entitled “Hierarchical Backup and Retrieval    System”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,207, entitled “System and Method for Dynamically    Performing Storage Operations in a Computer Network”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 7,747,579, entitled “Metabase for Facilitating Data    Classification”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 8,229,954, entitled “Managing Copies of Data”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 7,617,262, entitled “System and Methods for Monitoring    Application Data in a Data Replication System”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 7,529,782, entitled “System and Methods for Performing    a Snapshot and for Restoring Data”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195, entitled “System And Method For Performing    Auxiliary Storage Operations”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 7,315,923, entitled “System And Method For Combining    Data Streams In Pipelined Storage Operations In A Storage Network”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 8,364,652, entitled “Content-Aligned, Block-Based    Deduplication”;-   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2006/0224846, entitled “System and Method to    Support Single Instance Storage Operations”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 8,578,120, entitled “Block-Level Single Instancing”;-   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2009/0319534, entitled “Application-Aware and    Remote Single Instance Data Management”;-   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150826, entitled “Distributed Deduplicated    Storage System”;-   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150818, entitled “Client-Side Repository in    a Networked Deduplicated Storage System”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995, entitled “Method and System for Offline    Indexing of Content and Classifying Stored Data”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 7,107,298, entitled “System And Method For Archiving    Objects In An Information Store”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195, entitled “System And Method For Performing    Auxiliary Storage Operations”;-   U.S. Pat. No. 8,229,954, entitled “Managing Copies Of Data”; and-   U.S. Pat. No. 8,156,086, entitled “Systems And Methods For Stored    Data Verification”.

The information management system 900 can include a variety of differentcomputing devices. For instance, as will be described in greater detailherein, the information management system 900 can include one or moreclient computing devices 902 and secondary storage computing devices906.

Computing devices can include, without limitation, one or more:workstations, personal computers, desktop computers, or other types ofgenerally fixed computing systems such as mainframe computers andminicomputers.

Other computing devices can include mobile or portable computingdevices, such as one or more laptops, tablet computers, personal dataassistants, mobile phones (such as smartphones), and other mobile orportable computing devices such as embedded computers, set top boxes,vehicle-mounted devices, wearable computers, etc. Computing devices caninclude servers, such as mail servers, file servers, database servers,and web servers.

In some cases, a computing device includes virtualized and/or cloudcomputing resources. For instance, one or more virtual machines may beprovided to the organization by a third-party cloud service vendor. Or,in some embodiments, computing devices can include one or more virtualmachine(s) running on a physical host computing device (or “hostmachine”) operated by the organization. As one example, the organizationmay use one virtual machine as a database server and another virtualmachine as a mail server, both virtual machines operating on the samehost machine.

A virtual machine includes an operating system and associated virtualresources, and is hosted simultaneously with another operating system ona physical host computer (or host machine). A hypervisor (typicallysoftware, and also known in the art as a virtual machine monitor or avirtual machine manager or “VMM”) sits between the virtual machine andthe hardware of the physical host computer. One example of hypervisor asvirtualization software is ESX Server, by VMware, Inc. of Palo Alto,Calif.; other examples include Microsoft Virtual Server and MicrosoftWindows Server Hyper-V, both by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.,and Sun xVM by Oracle America Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif. In someembodiments, the hypervisor may be firmware or hardware or a combinationof software and/or firmware and/or hardware.

The hypervisor provides to each virtual operating system virtualresources, such as a virtual processor, virtual memory, a virtualnetwork device, and a virtual disk. Each virtual machine has one or morevirtual disks. The hypervisor typically stores the data of virtual disksin files on the file system of the physical host computer, calledvirtual machine disk files (in the case of VMware virtual servers) orvirtual hard disk image files (in the case of Microsoft virtualservers). For example, VMware's ESX Server provides the Virtual MachineFile System (VMFS) for the storage of virtual machine disk files. Avirtual machine reads data from and writes data to its virtual disk muchthe same way that an actual physical machine reads data from and writesdata to an actual disk.

Examples of techniques for implementing information managementtechniques in a cloud computing environment are described in U.S. Pat.No. 8,285,681, which is incorporated by reference herein. Examples oftechniques for implementing information management techniques in avirtualized computing environment are described in U.S. Pat. No.8,307,177, also incorporated by reference herein.

The information management system 900 can also include a variety ofstorage devices, including primary storage devices 904 and secondarystorage devices 908, for example. Storage devices can generally be ofany suitable type including, without limitation, disk drives, hard-diskarrays, semiconductor memory (e.g., solid state storage devices),network attached storage (NAS) devices, tape libraries or othermagnetic, non-tape storage devices, optical media storage devices,DNA/RNA-based memory technology, combinations of the same, and the like.In some embodiments, storage devices can form part of a distributed filesystem. In some cases, storage devices are provided in a cloud (e.g., aprivate cloud or one operated by a third-party vendor). A storage devicein some cases comprises a disk array or portion thereof.

The illustrated information management system 900 includes one or moreclient computing device 902 having at least one application 910executing thereon, and one or more primary storage devices 904 storingprimary data 912. The client computing device(s) 902 and the primarystorage devices 904 may generally be referred to in some cases as aprimary storage subsystem 917. A computing device in an informationmanagement system 900 that has a data agent 942 installed on it isgenerally referred to as a client computing device 902 (or, in thecontext of a component of the information management system 900 simplyas a “client”).

Depending on the context, the term “information management system” canrefer to generally all of the illustrated hardware and softwarecomponents. Or, in other instances, the term may refer to only a subsetof the illustrated components.

For instance, in some cases, the information management system 900generally refers to a combination of specialized components used toprotect, move, manage, manipulate, analyze, and/or process data andmetadata generated by the client computing devices 902. However, theinformation management system 900 in some cases does not include theunderlying components that generate and/or store the primary data 912,such as the client computing devices 902 themselves, the applications910 and operating system residing on the client computing devices 902,and the primary storage devices 904. As an example, “informationmanagement system” may sometimes refer to one or more of the followingcomponents and corresponding data structures: storage managers, dataagents, and media agents. These components will be described in furtherdetail below.

Client Computing Devices

There are typically a variety of sources in an organization that producedata to be protected and managed. As just one illustrative example, in acorporate environment such data sources can be employee workstations andcompany servers such as a mail server, a web server, or the like. In theinformation management system 900, the data generation sources includethe one or more client computing devices 902.

The client computing devices 902 may include any of the types ofcomputing devices described above, without limitation, and in some casesthe client computing devices 902 are associated with one or more usersand/or corresponding user accounts, of employees or other individuals.

The information management system 900 generally addresses and handlesthe data management and protection needs for the data generated by theclient computing devices 902. However, the use of this term does notimply that the client computing devices 902 cannot be “servers” in otherrespects. For instance, a particular client computing device 902 may actas a server with respect to other devices, such as other clientcomputing devices 902. As just a few examples, the client computingdevices 902 can include mail servers, file servers, database servers,and web servers.

Each client computing device 902 may have one or more applications 910(e.g., software applications) executing thereon which generate andmanipulate the data that is to be protected from loss and managed.

The applications 910 generally facilitate the operations of anorganization (or multiple affiliated organizations), and can include,without limitation, mail server applications (e.g., Microsoft ExchangeServer), file server applications, mail client applications (e.g.,Microsoft Exchange Client), database applications (e.g., SQL, Oracle,SAP, Lotus Notes Database), word processing applications (e.g.,Microsoft Word), spreadsheet applications, financial applications,presentation applications, browser applications, mobile applications,entertainment applications, and so on.

The client computing devices 902 can have at least one operating system(e.g., Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, IBM z/OS, Linux, otherUnix-based operating systems, etc.) installed thereon, which may supportor host one or more file systems and other applications 910.

As shown, the client computing devices 902 and other components in theinformation management system 900 can be connected to one another viaone or more communication pathways 914. The communication pathways 914can include one or more networks or other connection types including asany of following, without limitation: the Internet, a wide area network(WAN), a local area network (LAN), a Storage Area Network (SAN), a FibreChannel connection, a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) connection,a virtual private network (VPN), a token ring or TCP/IP based network,an intranet network, a point-to-point link, a cellular network, awireless data transmission system, a two-way cable system, aninteractive kiosk network, a satellite network, a broadband network, abaseband network, a neural network, a mesh network, an ad hoc network,other appropriate wired, wireless, or partially wired/wireless computeror telecommunications networks, combinations of the same or the like.The communication pathways 914 in some cases may also includeapplication programming interfaces (APIs) including, e.g., cloud serviceprovider APIs, virtual machine management APIs, and hosted serviceprovider APIs.

Primary Data and Exemplary Primary Storage Devices

Primary data 912 according to some embodiments is production data orother “live” data generated by the operating system and otherapplications 910 residing on a client computing device 902. The primarydata 912 is generally stored on the primary storage device(s) 904 and isorganized via a file system supported by the client computing device902. For instance, the client computing device(s) 902 and correspondingapplications 910 may create, access, modify, write, delete, andotherwise use primary data 912. In some cases, some or all of theprimary data 912 can be stored in cloud storage resources.

Primary data 912 is generally in the native format of the sourceapplication 910. According to certain aspects, primary data 912 is aninitial or first (e.g., created before any other copies or before atleast one other copy) stored copy of data generated by the sourceapplication 910. Primary data 912 in some cases is created substantiallydirectly from data generated by the corresponding source applications910.

The primary data 912 may sometimes be referred to as a “primary copy” inthe sense that it is a discrete set of data. However, the use of thisterm does not necessarily imply that the “primary copy” is a copy in thesense that it was copied or otherwise derived from another storedversion.

The primary storage devices 904 storing the primary data 912 may berelatively fast and/or expensive (e.g., a disk drive, a hard-disk array,solid state memory, etc.). In addition, primary data 912 may be intendedfor relatively short term retention (e.g., several hours, days, orweeks).

According to some embodiments, the client computing device 902 canaccess primary data 912 from the primary storage device 904 by makingconventional file system calls via the operating system. Primary data912 representing files may include structured data (e.g., databasefiles), unstructured data (e.g., documents), and/or semi-structureddata. Some specific examples are described below with respect to FIG.9B.

It can be useful in performing certain tasks to organize the primarydata 912 into units of different granularities. In general, primary data912 can include files, directories, file system volumes, data blocks,extents, or any other hierarchies or organizations of data objects. Asused herein, a “data object” can refer to both (1) any file that iscurrently addressable by a file system or that was previouslyaddressable by the file system (e.g., an archive file) and (2) a subsetof such a file (e.g., a data block).

As will be described in further detail, it can also be useful inperforming certain functions of the information management system 900 toaccess and modify metadata within the primary data 912. Metadatagenerally includes information about data objects or characteristicsassociated with the data objects.

Metadata can include, without limitation, one or more of the following:the data owner (e.g., the client or user that generates the data), thelast modified time (e.g., the time of the most recent modification ofthe data object), a data object name (e.g., a file name), a data objectsize (e.g., a number of bytes of data), information about the content(e.g., an indication as to the existence of a particular search term),user-supplied tags, to/from information for email (e.g., an emailsender, recipient, etc.), creation date, file type (e.g., format orapplication type), last accessed time, application type (e.g., type ofapplication that generated the data object), location/network (e.g., acurrent, past or future location of the data object and network pathwaysto/from the data object), geographic location (e.g., GPS coordinates),frequency of change (e.g., a period in which the data object ismodified), business unit (e.g., a group or department that generates,manages or is otherwise associated with the data object), aginginformation (e.g., a schedule, such as a time period, in which the dataobject is migrated to secondary or long term storage), boot sectors,partition layouts, file location within a file folder directorystructure, user permissions, owners, groups, access control lists[ACLs]), system metadata (e.g., registry information), combinations ofthe same or the other similar information related to the data object.

In addition to metadata generated by or related to file systems andoperating systems, some of the applications 910 and/or other componentsof the information management system 900 maintain indices of metadatafor data objects, e.g., metadata associated with individual emailmessages. Thus, each data object may be associated with correspondingmetadata. The use of metadata to perform classification and otherfunctions is described in greater detail below.

Each of the client computing devices 902 are generally associated withand/or in communication with one or more of the primary storage devices904 storing corresponding primary data 912. A client computing device902 may be considered to be “associated with” or “in communication with”a primary storage device 904 if it is capable of one or more of: routingand/or storing data to the particular primary storage device 904,coordinating the routing and/or storing of data to the particularprimary storage device 904, retrieving data from the particular primarystorage device 904, coordinating the retrieval of data from theparticular primary storage device 904, and modifying and/or deletingdata retrieved from the particular primary storage device 904.

The primary storage devices 904 can include any of the different typesof storage devices described above, or some other kind of suitablestorage device. The primary storage devices 904 may have relatively fastI/O times and/or are relatively expensive in comparison to the secondarystorage devices 908. For example, the information management system 900may generally regularly access data and metadata stored on primarystorage devices 904, whereas data and metadata stored on the secondarystorage devices 908 is accessed relatively less frequently.

In some cases, each primary storage device 904 is dedicated to anassociated client computing device 902. For instance, a primary storagedevice 904 in one embodiment is a local disk drive of a correspondingclient computing device 902. In other cases, one or more primary storagedevices 904 can be shared by multiple client computing devices 902,e.g., via a network such as in a cloud storage implementation. As oneexample, a primary storage device 904 can be a disk array shared by agroup of client computing devices 902, such as one of the followingtypes of disk arrays: EMC Clariion, EMC Symmetrix, EMC Celerra, DellEqualLogic, IBM XIV, NetApp FAS, HP EVA, and HP 3PAR.

The information management system 900 may also include hosted services(not shown), which may be hosted in some cases by an entity other thanthe organization that employs the other components of the informationmanagement system 900. For instance, the hosted services may be providedby various online service providers to the organization. Such serviceproviders can provide services including social networking services,hosted email services, or hosted productivity applications or otherhosted applications).

Hosted services may include software-as-a-service (SaaS),platform-as-a-service (PaaS), application service providers (ASPs),cloud services, or other mechanisms for delivering functionality via anetwork. As it provides services to users, each hosted service maygenerate additional data and metadata under management of theinformation management system 900, e.g., as primary data 912. In somecases, the hosted services may be accessed using one of the applications910. As an example, a hosted mail service may be accessed via browserrunning on a client computing device 902. The hosted services may beimplemented in a variety of computing environments. In some cases, theyare implemented in an environment having a similar arrangement to theinformation management system 900, where various physical and logicalcomponents are distributed over a network.

Secondary Copies and Exemplary Secondary Storage Devices

The primary data 912 stored on the primary storage devices 904 may becompromised in some cases, such as when an employee deliberately oraccidentally deletes or overwrites primary data 912 during their normalcourse of work. Or the primary storage devices 904 can be damaged orotherwise corrupted.

For recovery and/or regulatory compliance purposes, it is thereforeuseful to generate copies of the primary data 912. Accordingly, theinformation management system 900 includes one or more secondary storagecomputing devices 906 and one or more secondary storage devices 908configured to create and store one or more secondary copies 916 of theprimary data 912 and associated metadata. The secondary storagecomputing devices 906 and the secondary storage devices 908 maysometimes be referred to as a secondary storage subsystem 918.

Creation of secondary copies 916 can help in search and analysis effortsand meet other information management goals, such as: restoring dataand/or metadata if an original version (e.g., of primary data 912) islost (e.g., by deletion, corruption, or disaster); allowingpoint-in-time recovery; complying with regulatory data retention andelectronic discovery (e-discovery) requirements; reducing utilizedstorage capacity; facilitating organization and search of data;improving user access to data files across multiple computing devicesand/or hosted services; and implementing data retention policies.

The client computing devices 902 access or receive primary data 912 andcommunicate the data, e.g., over the communication pathways 914, forstorage in the secondary storage device(s) 908.

A secondary copy 916 can comprise a separate stored copy of applicationdata that is derived from one or more earlier-created, stored copies(e.g., derived from primary data 912 or another secondary copy 916).Secondary copies 916 can include point-in-time data, and may be intendedfor relatively long-term retention (e.g., weeks, months or years),before some or all of the data is moved to other storage or isdiscarded.

In some cases, a secondary copy 916 is a copy of application datacreated and stored subsequent to at least one other stored instance(e.g., subsequent to corresponding primary data 912 or to anothersecondary copy 916), in a different storage device than at least oneprevious stored copy, and/or remotely from at least one previous storedcopy. In some other cases, secondary copies can be stored in the samestorage device as primary data 912 and/or other previously storedcopies. For example, in one embodiment a disk array capable ofperforming hardware snapshots stores primary data 912 and creates andstores hardware snapshots of the primary data 912 as secondary copies916. Secondary copies 916 may be stored in relatively slow and/or lowcost storage (e.g., magnetic tape). A secondary copy 916 may be storedin a backup or archive format, or in some other format different thanthe native source application format or other primary data format.

In some cases, secondary copies 916 are indexed so users can browse andrestore at another point in time. After creation of a secondary copy 916representative of certain primary data 912, a pointer or other locationindicia (e.g., a stub) may be placed in primary data 912, or beotherwise associated with primary data 912 to indicate the currentlocation on the secondary storage device(s) 908.

Since an instance of a data object or metadata in primary data 912 maychange over time as it is modified by an application 910 (or hostedservice or the operating system), the information management system 900may create and manage multiple secondary copies 916 of a particular dataobject or metadata, each representing the state of the data object inprimary data 912 at a particular point in time. Moreover, since aninstance of a data object in primary data 912 may eventually be deletedfrom the primary storage device 904 and the file system, the informationmanagement system 900 may continue to manage point-in-timerepresentations of that data object, even though the instance in primarydata 912 no longer exists.

For virtualized computing devices the operating system and otherapplications 910 of the client computing device(s) 902 may executewithin or under the management of virtualization software (e.g., a VMM),and the primary storage device(s) 904 may comprise a virtual diskcreated on a physical storage device. The information management system900 may create secondary copies 916 of the files or other data objectsin a virtual disk file and/or secondary copies 916 of the entire virtualdisk file itself (e.g., of an entire .vmdk file).

Secondary copies 916 may be distinguished from corresponding primarydata 912 in a variety of ways, some of which will now be described.First, as discussed, secondary copies 916 can be stored in a differentformat (e.g., backup, archive, or other non-native format) than primarydata 912. For this or other reasons, secondary copies 916 may not bedirectly useable by the applications 910 of the client computing device902, e.g., via standard system calls or otherwise without modification,processing, or other intervention by the information management system900.

Secondary copies 916 are also in some embodiments stored on a secondarystorage device 908 that is inaccessible to the applications 910 runningon the client computing devices 902 (and/or hosted services). Somesecondary copies 916 may be “offline copies,” in that they are notreadily available (e.g., not mounted to tape or disk). Offline copiescan include copies of data that the information management system 900can access without human intervention (e.g., tapes within an automatedtape library, but not yet mounted in a drive), and copies that theinformation management system 900 can access only with at least somehuman intervention (e.g., tapes located at an offsite storage site).

The Use of Intermediate Devices for Creating Secondary Copies

Creating secondary copies can be a challenging task. For instance, therecan be hundreds or thousands of client computing devices 902 continuallygenerating large volumes of primary data 912 to be protected. Also,there can be significant overhead involved in the creation of secondarycopies 916. Moreover, secondary storage devices 908 may be specialpurpose components, and interacting with them can require specializedintelligence.

In some cases, the client computing devices 902 interact directly withthe secondary storage device 908 to create the secondary copies 916.However, in view of the factors described above, this approach cannegatively impact the ability of the client computing devices 902 toserve the applications 910 and produce primary data 912. Further, theclient computing devices 902 may not be optimized for interaction withthe secondary storage devices 908.

Thus, in some embodiments, the information management system 900includes one or more software and/or hardware components which generallyact as intermediaries between the client computing devices 902 and thesecondary storage devices 908. In addition to off-loading certainresponsibilities from the client computing devices 902, theseintermediate components can provide other benefits. For instance, asdiscussed further below with respect to FIG. 9D, distributing some ofthe work involved in creating secondary copies 916 can enhancescalability.

The intermediate components can include one or more secondary storagecomputing devices 906 as shown in FIG. 9A and/or one or more mediaagents, which can be software modules residing on correspondingsecondary storage computing devices 906 (or other appropriate devices).Media agents are discussed below (e.g., with respect to FIGS. 9C-9E).

The secondary storage computing device(s) 906 can comprise any of thecomputing devices described above, without limitation. In some cases,the secondary storage computing device(s) 906 include specializedhardware and/or software componentry for interacting with the secondarystorage devices 908.

To create a secondary copy 916 involving the copying of data from theprimary storage subsystem 917 to the secondary storage subsystem 918,the client computing device 902 in some embodiments communicates theprimary data 912 to be copied (or a processed version thereof) to thedesignated secondary storage computing device 906, via the communicationpathway 914. The secondary storage computing device 906 in turn conveysthe received data (or a processed version thereof) to the secondarystorage device 908. In some such configurations, the communicationpathway 914 between the client computing device 902 and the secondarystorage computing device 906 comprises a portion of a LAN, WAN or SAN.In other cases, at least some client computing devices 902 communicatedirectly with the secondary storage devices 908 (e.g., via Fibre Channelor SCSI connections). In some other cases, one or more secondary copies916 are created from existing secondary copies, such as in the case ofan auxiliary copy operation, described in greater detail below.

Exemplary Primary Data and an Exemplary Secondary Copy

FIG. 9B is a detailed view showing some specific examples of primarydata stored on the primary storage device(s) 904 and secondary copy datastored on the secondary storage device(s) 908, with other components inthe system removed for the purposes of illustration. Stored on theprimary storage device(s) 904 are primary data objects including wordprocessing documents 919A-B, spreadsheets 920, presentation documents922, video files 924, image files 926, email mailboxes 928 (andcorresponding email messages 929A-C), html/xml or other types of markuplanguage files 930, databases 932 and corresponding tables or other datastructures 933A-933C).

Some or all primary data objects are associated with correspondingmetadata (e.g., “Meta1-11”), which may include file system metadataand/or application specific metadata. Stored on the secondary storagedevice(s) 908 are secondary copy data objects 934A-C which may includecopies of or otherwise represent corresponding primary data objects andmetadata.

As shown, the secondary copy data objects 934A-C can individuallyrepresent more than one primary data object. For example, secondary copydata object 934A represents three separate primary data objects 933C,922 and 929C (represented as 933C′, 922′ and 929C′, respectively, andaccompanied by the corresponding metadata Meta11, Meta3, and Meta8,respectively). Moreover, as indicated by the prime mark (′), a secondarycopy object may store a representation of a primary data object ormetadata differently than the original format, e.g., in a compressed,encrypted, deduplicated, or other modified format. Likewise, secondarydata object 934B represents primary data objects 920, 933B, and 919A as920′, 933B′, and 919A′, respectively and accompanied by correspondingmetadata Meta2, Meta10, and Meta1, respectively. Also, secondary dataobject 934C represents primary data objects 933A, 919B, and 929A as933A′, 919B′, and 929A′, respectively, accompanied by correspondingmetadata Meta9, Meta5, and Meta6, respectively.

Exemplary Information Management System Architecture

The information management system 900 can incorporate a variety ofdifferent hardware and software components, which can in turn beorganized with respect to one another in many different configurations,depending on the embodiment. There are critical design choices involvedin specifying the functional responsibilities of the components and therole of each component in the information management system 900. Forinstance, as will be discussed, such design choices can impactperformance as well as the adaptability of the information managementsystem 900 to data growth or other changing circumstances.

FIG. 9C shows an information management system 900 designed according tothese considerations and which includes: storage manager 940, acentralized storage and/or information manager that is configured toperform certain control functions, one or more data agents 942 executingon the client computing device(s) 902 configured to process primary data912, and one or more media agents 944 executing on the one or moresecondary storage computing devices 906 for performing tasks involvingthe secondary storage devices 908. While distributing functionalityamongst multiple computing devices can have certain advantages, in othercontexts it can be beneficial to consolidate functionality on the samecomputing device. As such, in various other embodiments, one or more ofthe components shown in FIG. 9C as being implemented on separatecomputing devices are implemented on the same computing device. In oneconfiguration, a storage manager 940, one or more data agents 942, andone or more media agents 944 are all implemented on the same computingdevice. In another embodiment, one or more data agents 942 and one ormore media agents 944 are implemented on the same computing device,while the storage manager 940 is implemented on a separate computingdevice.

Storage Manager

As noted, the number of components in the information management system900 and the amount of data under management can be quite large. Managingthe components and data is therefore a significant task, and a task thatcan grow in an often unpredictable fashion as the quantity of componentsand data scale to meet the needs of the organization.

For these and other reasons, according to certain embodiments,responsibility for controlling the information management system 900, orat least a significant portion of that responsibility, is allocated tothe storage manager 940.

By distributing control functionality in this manner, the storagemanager 940 can be adapted independently according to changingcircumstances. Moreover, a computing device for hosting the storagemanager 940 can be selected to best suit the functions of the storagemanager 940. These and other advantages are described in further detailbelow with respect to FIG. 9D.

The storage manager 940 may be a software module or other application.In some embodiments, storage manager 940 is a computing devicecomprising circuitry for executing computer instructions and performsthe functions described herein. The storage manager generally initiates,performs, coordinates and/or controls storage and other informationmanagement operations performed by the information management system900, e.g., to protect and control the primary data 912 and secondarycopies 916 of data and metadata.

As shown by the dashed arrowed lines 914, the storage manager 940 maycommunicate with and/or control some or all elements of the informationmanagement system 900, such as the data agents 942 and media agents 944.Thus, in certain embodiments, control information originates from thestorage manager 940, whereas payload data and payload metadata isgenerally communicated between the data agents 942 and the media agents944 (or otherwise between the client computing device(s) 902 and thesecondary storage computing device(s) 906), e.g., at the direction ofthe storage manager 940. Control information can generally includeparameters and instructions for carrying out information managementoperations, such as, without limitation, instructions to perform a taskassociated with an operation, timing information specifying when toinitiate a task associated with an operation, data path informationspecifying what components to communicate with or access in carrying outan operation, and the like. Payload data, on the other hand, can includethe actual data involved in the storage operation, such as content datawritten to a secondary storage device 908 in a secondary copy operation.Payload metadata can include any of the types of metadata describedherein, and may be written to a storage device along with the payloadcontent data (e.g., in the form of a header).

In other embodiments, some information management operations arecontrolled by other components in the information management system 900(e.g., the media agent(s) 944 or data agent(s) 942), instead of or incombination with the storage manager 940.

According to certain embodiments, the storage manager 940 provides oneor more of the following functions:

-   -   initiating execution of secondary copy operations;    -   managing secondary storage devices 908 and inventory/capacity of        the same;    -   reporting, searching, and/or classification of data in the        information management system 900;    -   allocating secondary storage devices 908 for secondary storage        operations;    -   monitoring completion of and providing status reporting related        to secondary storage operations;    -   tracking age information relating to secondary copies 916,        secondary storage devices 908, and comparing the age information        against retention guidelines;    -   tracking movement of data within the information management        system 900;    -   tracking logical associations between components in the        information management system 900;    -   protecting metadata associated with the information management        system 900; and    -   implementing operations management functionality.

The storage manager 940 may maintain a database 946 (or “storage managerdatabase 946” or “management database 946”) of management-related dataand information management policies 948. The database 946 may include amanagement index 950 (or “index 950”) or other data structure thatstores logical associations between components of the system, userpreferences and/or profiles (e.g., preferences regarding encryption,compression, or deduplication of primary or secondary copy data,preferences regarding the scheduling, type, or other aspects of primaryor secondary copy or other operations, mappings of particularinformation management users or user accounts to certain computingdevices or other components, etc.), management tasks, mediacontainerization, or other useful data. For example, the storage manager940 may use the index 950 to track logical associations between mediaagents 944 and secondary storage devices 908 and/or movement of datafrom primary storage devices 904 to secondary storage devices 908. Forinstance, the index 950 may store data associating a client computingdevice 902 with a particular media agent 944 and/or secondary storagedevice 908, as specified in an information management policy 948 (e.g.,a storage policy, which is defined in more detail below).

Administrators and other employees may be able to manually configure andinitiate certain information management operations on an individualbasis. But while this may be acceptable for some recovery operations orother relatively less frequent tasks, it is often not workable forimplementing on-going organization-wide data protection and management.

Thus, the information management system 900 may utilize informationmanagement policies 948 for specifying and executing informationmanagement operations (e.g., on an automated basis). Generally, aninformation management policy 948 can include a data structure or otherinformation source that specifies a set of parameters (e.g., criteriaand rules) associated with storage or other information managementoperations.

The storage manager database 946 may maintain the information managementpolicies 948 and associated data, although the information managementpolicies 948 can be stored in any appropriate location. For instance, aninformation management policy 948 such as a storage policy may be storedas metadata in a media agent database 952 or in a secondary storagedevice 908 (e.g., as an archive copy) for use in restore operations orother information management operations, depending on the embodiment.Information management policies 948 are described further below.

According to certain embodiments, the storage manager database 946comprises a relational database (e.g., an SQL database) for trackingmetadata, such as metadata associated with secondary copy operations(e.g., what client computing devices 902 and corresponding data wereprotected). This and other metadata may additionally be stored in otherlocations, such as at the secondary storage computing devices 906 or onthe secondary storage devices 908, allowing data recovery without theuse of the storage manager 940.

As shown, the storage manager 940 may include a jobs agent 956, a userinterface 958, and a management agent 954, all of which may beimplemented as interconnected software modules or application programs.

The jobs agent 956 in some embodiments initiates, controls, and/ormonitors the status of some or all storage or other informationmanagement operations previously performed, currently being performed,or scheduled to be performed by the information management system 900.For instance, the jobs agent 956 may access information managementpolicies 948 to determine when and how to initiate and control secondarycopy and other information management operations, as will be discussedfurther.

The user interface 958 may include information processing and displaysoftware, such as a graphical user interface (“GUI”), an applicationprogram interface (“API”), or other interactive interface(s) throughwhich users and system processes can retrieve information about thestatus of information management operations (e.g., storage operations)or issue instructions to the information management system 900 and itsconstituent components.

Via the user interface 958, users may optionally issue instructions tothe components in the information management system 900 regardingperformance of storage and recovery operations. For example, a user maymodify a schedule concerning the number of pending secondary copyoperations. As another example, a user may employ the GUI to view thestatus of pending storage operations or to monitor the status of certaincomponents in the information management system 900 (e.g., the amount ofcapacity left in a storage device).

An information management “cell” may generally include a logical and/orphysical grouping of a combination of hardware and software componentsassociated with performing information management operations onelectronic data, typically one storage manager 940 and at least oneclient computing device 902 (comprising data agent(s) 942) and at leastone media agent 944. For instance, the components shown in FIG. 9C maytogether form an information management cell. Multiple cells may beorganized hierarchically. With this configuration, cells may inheritproperties from hierarchically superior cells or be controlled by othercells in the hierarchy (automatically or otherwise). Alternatively, insome embodiments, cells may inherit or otherwise be associated withinformation management policies, preferences, information managementmetrics, or other properties or characteristics according to theirrelative position in a hierarchy of cells. Cells may also be delineatedand/or organized hierarchically according to function, geography,architectural considerations, or other factors useful or desirable inperforming information management operations. A first cell may representa geographic segment of an enterprise, such as a Chicago office, and asecond cell may represent a different geographic segment, such as a NewYork office. Other cells may represent departments within a particularoffice. Where delineated by function, a first cell may perform one ormore first types of information management operations (e.g., one or morefirst types of secondary or other copies), and a second cell may performone or more second types of information management operations (e.g., oneor more second types of secondary or other copies).

The storage manager 940 may also track information that permits it toselect, designate, or otherwise identify content indices, deduplicationdatabases, or similar databases or resources or data sets within itsinformation management cell (or another cell) to be searched in responseto certain queries. Such queries may be entered by the user viainteraction with the user interface 958. In general, the managementagent 954 allows multiple information management cells to communicatewith one another. For example, the information management system 900 insome cases may be one information management cell of a network ofmultiple cells adjacent to one another or otherwise logically related ina WAN or LAN. With this arrangement, the cells may be connected to oneanother through respective management agents 954.

For instance, the management agent 954 can provide the storage manager940 with the ability to communicate with other components within theinformation management system 900 (and/or other cells within a largerinformation management system) via network protocols and applicationprogramming interfaces (“APIs”) including, e.g., HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, REST,virtualization software APIs, cloud service provider APIs, and hostedservice provider APIs. Inter-cell communication and hierarchy isdescribed in greater detail in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,747,579 and 7,343,453,which are incorporated by reference herein.

Data Agents

As discussed, a variety of different types of applications 910 canreside on a given client computing device 902, including operatingsystems, database applications, e-mail applications, and virtualmachines, just to name a few. And, as part of the process of creatingand restoring secondary copies 916, the client computing devices 902 maybe tasked with processing and preparing the primary data 912 from thesevarious different applications 910. Moreover, the nature of theprocessing/preparation can differ across clients and application types,e.g., due to inherent structural and formatting differences betweenapplications 910.

The one or more data agent(s) 942 are therefore advantageouslyconfigured in some embodiments to assist in the performance ofinformation management operations based on the type of data that isbeing protected, at a client-specific and/or application-specific level.

The data agent 942 may be a software module or component that isgenerally responsible for managing, initiating, or otherwise assistingin the performance of information management operations. For instance,the data agent 942 may take part in performing data storage operationssuch as the copying, archiving, migrating, replicating of primary data912 stored in the primary storage device(s) 904. The data agent 942 mayreceive control information from the storage manager 940, such ascommands to transfer copies of data objects, metadata, and other payloaddata to the media agents 944.

In some embodiments, a data agent 942 may be distributed between theclient computing device 902 and storage manager 940 (and any otherintermediate components) or may be deployed from a remote location orits functions approximated by a remote process that performs some or allof the functions of data agent 942. In addition, a data agent 942 mayperform some functions provided by a media agent 944, or may performother functions such as encryption and deduplication.

As indicated, each data agent 942 may be specialized for a particularapplication 910, and the system can employ multiple application-specificdata agents 942, each of which may perform information managementoperations (e.g., perform backup, migration, and data recovery)associated with a different application 910. For instance, differentindividual data agents 942 may be designed to handle Microsoft Exchangedata, Lotus Notes data, Microsoft Windows file system data, MicrosoftActive Directory Objects data, SQL Server data, SharePoint data, Oracledatabase data, SAP database data, virtual machines and/or associateddata, and other types of data.

A file system data agent, for example, may handle data files and/orother file system information. If a client computing device 902 has twoor more types of data, one data agent 942 may be used for each data typeto copy, archive, migrate, and restore the client computing device 902data. For example, to backup, migrate, and restore all of the data on aMicrosoft Exchange server, the client computing device 902 may use oneMicrosoft Exchange Mailbox data agent 942 to backup the Exchangemailboxes, one Microsoft Exchange Database data agent 942 to backup theExchange databases, one Microsoft Exchange Public Folder data agent 942to backup the Exchange Public Folders, and one Microsoft Windows FileSystem data agent 942 to backup the file system of the client computingdevice 902. In such embodiments, these data agents 942 may be treated asfour separate data agents 942 even though they reside on the same clientcomputing device 902.

Other embodiments may employ one or more generic data agents 942 thatcan handle and process data from two or more different applications 910,or that can handle and process multiple data types, instead of or inaddition to using specialized data agents 942. For example, one genericdata agent 942 may be used to back up, migrate and restore MicrosoftExchange Mailbox data and Microsoft Exchange Database data while anothergeneric data agent may handle Microsoft Exchange Public Folder data andMicrosoft Windows File System data.

Each data agent 942 may be configured to access data and/or metadatastored in the primary storage device(s) 904 associated with the dataagent 942 and process the data as appropriate. For example, during asecondary copy operation, the data agent 942 may arrange or assemble thedata and metadata into one or more files having a certain format (e.g.,a particular backup or archive format) before transferring the file(s)to a media agent 944 or other component. The file(s) may include a listof files or other metadata. Each data agent 942 can also assist inrestoring data or metadata to primary storage devices 904 from asecondary copy 916. For instance, the data agent 942 may operate inconjunction with the storage manager 940 and one or more of the mediaagents 944 to restore data from secondary storage device(s) 908.

Media Agents

As indicated above with respect to FIG. 9A, off-loading certainresponsibilities from the client computing devices 902 to intermediatecomponents such as the media agent(s) 944 can provide a number ofbenefits including improved client computing device 902 operation,faster secondary copy operation performance, and enhanced scalability.As one specific example which will be discussed below in further detail,the media agent 944 can act as a local cache of copied data and/ormetadata that it has stored to the secondary storage device(s) 908,providing improved restore capabilities.

Generally speaking, a media agent 944 may be implemented as a softwaremodule that manages, coordinates, and facilitates the transmission ofdata, as directed by the storage manager 940, between a client computingdevice 902 and one or more secondary storage devices 908. Whereas thestorage manager 940 controls the operation of the information managementsystem 900, the media agent 944 generally provides a portal to secondarystorage devices 908. For instance, other components in the systeminteract with the media agents 944 to gain access to data stored on thesecondary storage devices 908, whether it be for the purposes ofreading, writing, modifying, or deleting data. Moreover, as will bedescribed further, media agents 944 can generate and store informationrelating to characteristics of the stored data and/or metadata, or cangenerate and store other types of information that generally providesinsight into the contents of the secondary storage devices 908.

Media agents 944 can comprise separate nodes in the informationmanagement system 900 (e.g., nodes that are separate from the clientcomputing devices 902, storage manager 940, and/or secondary storagedevices 908). In general, a node within the information managementsystem 900 can be a logically and/or physically separate component, andin some cases is a component that is individually addressable orotherwise identifiable. In addition, each media agent 944 may reside ona dedicated secondary storage computing device 906 in some cases, whilein other embodiments a plurality of media agents 944 reside on the samesecondary storage computing device 906.

A media agent 944 (and corresponding media agent database 952) may beconsidered to be “associated with” a particular secondary storage device908 if that media agent 944 is capable of one or more of: routing and/orstoring data to the particular secondary storage device 908,coordinating the routing and/or storing of data to the particularsecondary storage device 908, retrieving data from the particularsecondary storage device 908, coordinating the retrieval of data from aparticular secondary storage device 908, and modifying and/or deletingdata retrieved from the particular secondary storage device 908.

While media agent(s) 944 are generally associated with one or moresecondary storage devices 908, one or more media agents 944 in certainembodiments are physically separate from the secondary storage devices908. For instance, the media agents 944 may reside on secondary storagecomputing devices 906 having different housings or packages than thesecondary storage devices 908. In one example, a media agent 944 resideson a first server computer and is in communication with a secondarystorage device(s) 908 residing in a separate, rack-mounted RAID-basedsystem.

Where the information management system 900 includes multiple mediaagents 944 (FIG. 9D), a first media agent 944 may provide failoverfunctionality for a second, failed media agent 944. In addition, mediaagents 944 can be dynamically selected for storage operations to provideload balancing. Failover and load balancing are described in greaterdetail below.

In operation, a media agent 944 associated with a particular secondarystorage device 908 may instruct the secondary storage device 908 toperform an information management operation. For instance, a media agent944 may instruct a tape library to use a robotic arm or other retrievalmeans to load or eject a certain storage media, and to subsequentlyarchive, migrate, or retrieve data to or from that media, e.g., for thepurpose of restoring the data to a client computing device 902. Asanother example, a secondary storage device 908 may include an array ofhard disk drives or solid state drives organized in a RAIDconfiguration, and the media agent 944 may forward a logical unit number(LUN) and other appropriate information to the array, which uses thereceived information to execute the desired storage operation. The mediaagent 944 may communicate with a secondary storage device 908 via asuitable communications link, such as a SCSI or Fiber Channel link.

As shown, each media agent 944 may maintain an associated media agentdatabase 952. The media agent database 952 may be stored in a disk orother storage device (not shown) that is local to the secondary storagecomputing device 906 on which the media agent 944 resides. In othercases, the media agent database 952 is stored remotely from thesecondary storage computing device 906.

The media agent database 952 can include, among other things, an index953 including data generated during secondary copy operations and otherstorage or information management operations. The index 953 provides amedia agent 944 or other component with a fast and efficient mechanismfor locating secondary copies 916 or other data stored in the secondarystorage devices 908. In some cases, the index 953 does not form a partof and is instead separate from the media agent database 952.

A media agent index 953 or other data structure associated with theparticular media agent 944 may include information about the storeddata. For instance, for each secondary copy 916, the index 953 mayinclude metadata such as a list of the data objects (e.g.,files/subdirectories, database objects, mailbox objects, etc.), a pathto the secondary copy 916 on the corresponding secondary storage device908, location information indicating where the data objects are storedin the secondary storage device 908, when the data objects were createdor modified, etc. Thus, the index 953 includes metadata associated withthe secondary copies 916 that is readily available for use in storageoperations and other activities without having to be first retrievedfrom the secondary storage device 908. In yet further embodiments, someor all of the data in the index 953 may instead or additionally bestored along with the data in a secondary storage device 908, e.g., witha copy of the index 953. In some embodiments, the secondary storagedevices 908 can include sufficient information to perform a “bare metalrestore”, where the operating system of a failed client computing device902 or other restore target is automatically rebuilt as part of arestore operation.

Because the index 953 maintained in the media agent database 952 mayoperate as a cache, it can also be referred to as “an index cache.” Insuch cases, information stored in the index cache 953 typicallycomprises data that reflects certain particulars about storageoperations that have occurred relatively recently. After some triggeringevent, such as after a certain period of time elapses, or the indexcache 953 reaches a particular size, the index cache 953 may be copiedor migrated to a secondary storage device(s) 908. This information mayneed to be retrieved and uploaded back into the index cache 953 orotherwise restored to a media agent 944 to facilitate retrieval of datafrom the secondary storage device(s) 908. In some embodiments, thecached information may include format or containerization informationrelated to archives or other files stored on the storage device(s) 908.In this manner, the index cache 953 allows for accelerated restores.

In some alternative embodiments the media agent 944 generally acts as acoordinator or facilitator of storage operations between clientcomputing devices 902 and corresponding secondary storage devices 908,but does not actually write the data to the secondary storage device908. For instance, the storage manager 940 (or the media agent 944) mayinstruct a client computing device 902 and secondary storage device 908to communicate with one another directly. In such a case the clientcomputing device 902 transmits the data directly or via one or moreintermediary components to the secondary storage device 908 according tothe received instructions, and vice versa. In some such cases, the mediaagent 944 may still receive, process, and/or maintain metadata relatedto the storage operations. Moreover, in these embodiments, the payloaddata can flow through the media agent 944 for the purposes of populatingthe index cache 953 maintained in the media agent database 952, but notfor writing to the secondary storage device 908.

The media agent 944 and/or other components such as the storage manager940 may in some cases incorporate additional functionality, such as dataclassification, content indexing, deduplication, encryption,compression, and the like. Further details regarding these and otherfunctions are described below.

Distributed, Scalable Architecture

As described, certain functions of the information management system 900can be distributed amongst various physical and/or logical components inthe system. For instance, one or more of the storage manager 940, dataagents 942, and media agents 944 may reside on computing devices thatare physically separate from one another. This architecture can providea number of benefits.

For instance, hardware and software design choices for each distributedcomponent can be targeted to suit its particular function. The secondarycomputing devices 906 on which the media agents 944 reside can betailored for interaction with associated secondary storage devices 908and provide fast index cache operation, among other specific tasks.Similarly, the client computing device(s) 902 can be selected toeffectively service the applications 910 residing thereon, in order toefficiently produce and store primary data 912.

Moreover, in some cases, one or more of the individual components in theinformation management system 900 can be distributed to multiple,separate computing devices. As one example, for large file systems wherethe amount of data stored in the database 946 is relatively large, thedatabase 946 may be migrated to or otherwise reside on a specializeddatabase server (e.g., an SQL server) separate from a server thatimplements the other functions of the storage manager 940. Thisconfiguration can provide added protection because the database 946 canbe protected with standard database utilities (e.g., SQL log shipping ordatabase replication) independent from other functions of the storagemanager 940. The database 946 can be efficiently replicated to a remotesite for use in the event of a disaster or other data loss incident atthe primary site. Or the database 946 can be replicated to anothercomputing device within the same site, such as to a higher performancemachine in the event that a storage manager host device can no longerservice the needs of a growing information management system 900.

The distributed architecture also provides both scalability andefficient component utilization. FIG. 9D shows an embodiment of theinformation management system 900 including a plurality of clientcomputing devices 902 and associated data agents 942 as well as aplurality of secondary storage computing devices 906 and associatedmedia agents 944.

Additional components can be added or subtracted based on the evolvingneeds of the information management system 900. For instance, dependingon where bottlenecks are identified, administrators can add additionalclient computing devices 902, secondary storage computing devices 906(and corresponding media agents 944), and/or secondary storage devices908. Moreover, where multiple fungible components are available, loadbalancing can be implemented to dynamically address identifiedbottlenecks. As an example, the storage manager 940 may dynamicallyselect which media agents 944 and/or secondary storage devices 908 touse for storage operations based on a processing load analysis of themedia agents 944 and/or secondary storage devices 908, respectively.

Moreover, each client computing device 902 in some embodiments cancommunicate with, among other components, any of the media agents 944,e.g., as directed by the storage manager 940. And each media agent 944may be able to communicate with, among other components, any of thesecondary storage devices 908, e.g., as directed by the storage manager940. Thus, operations can be routed to the secondary storage devices 908in a dynamic and highly flexible manner, to provide load balancing,failover, and the like. Further examples of scalable systems capable ofdynamic storage operations, and of systems capable of performing loadbalancing and fail over are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,207, whichis incorporated by reference herein.

In alternative configurations, certain components are not distributedand may instead reside and execute on the same computing device. Forexample, in some embodiments one or more data agents 942 and the storagemanager 940 reside on the same client computing device 902. In anotherembodiment, one or more data agents 942 and one or more media agents 944reside on a single computing device.

Exemplary Types of Information Management Operations

In order to protect and leverage stored data, the information managementsystem 900 can be configured to perform a variety of informationmanagement operations. As will be described, these operations cangenerally include secondary copy and other data movement operations,processing and data manipulation operations, analysis, reporting, andmanagement operations. The operations described herein may be performedon any type of computing platform, e.g., between two computers connectedvia a LAN, to a mobile client telecommunications device connected to aserver via a WLAN, to any manner of client device coupled to a cloudstorage target.

Data Movement Operations

Data movement operations according to certain embodiments are generallyoperations that involve the copying or migration of data (e.g., payloaddata) between different locations in the information management system900 in an original/native and/or one or more different formats. Forexample, data movement operations can include operations in which storeddata is copied, migrated, or otherwise transferred from one or morefirst storage devices to one or more second storage devices, such asfrom primary storage device(s) 904 to secondary storage device(s) 908,from secondary storage device(s) 908 to different secondary storagedevice(s) 908, from secondary storage devices 908 to primary storagedevices 904, or from primary storage device(s) 904 to different primarystorage device(s) 904.

Data movement operations can include by way of example, backupoperations, archive operations, information lifecycle managementoperations such as hierarchical storage management operations,replication operations (e.g., continuous data replication operations),snapshot operations, deduplication or single-instancing operations,auxiliary copy operations, and the like. As will be discussed, some ofthese operations involve the copying, migration or other movement ofdata, without actually creating multiple, distinct copies. Nonetheless,some or all of these operations are referred to as “copy” operations forsimplicity.

Backup Operations

A backup operation creates a copy of a version of data (e.g., one ormore files or other data units) in primary data 912 at a particularpoint in time. Each subsequent backup copy may be maintainedindependently of the first. Further, a backup copy in some embodimentsis generally stored in a form that is different than the native format,e.g., a backup format. This can be in contrast to the version in primarydata 912 from which the backup copy is derived, and which may instead bestored in a native format of the source application(s) 910. In variouscases, backup copies can be stored in a format in which the data iscompressed, encrypted, deduplicated, and/or otherwise modified from theoriginal application format. For example, a backup copy may be stored ina backup format that facilitates compression and/or efficient long-termstorage.

Backup copies can have relatively long retention periods as compared toprimary data 912, and may be stored on media with slower retrieval timesthan primary data 912 and certain other types of secondary copies 916.On the other hand, backups may have relatively shorter retention periodsthan some other types of secondary copies 916, such as archive copies(described below). Backups may sometimes be stored at on offsitelocation.

Backup operations can include full, synthetic or incremental backups. Afull backup in some embodiments is generally a complete image of thedata to be protected. However, because full backup copies can consume arelatively large amount of storage, it can be useful to use a fullbackup copy as a baseline and only store changes relative to the fullbackup copy for subsequent backup copies.

For instance, a differential backup operation (or cumulative incrementalbackup operation) tracks and stores changes that have occurred since thelast full backup. Differential backups can grow quickly in size, but canprovide relatively efficient restore times because a restore can becompleted in some cases using only the full backup copy and the latestdifferential copy.

An incremental backup operation generally tracks and stores changessince the most recent backup copy of any type, which can greatly reducestorage utilization. In some cases, however, restore times can berelatively long in comparison to full or differential backups becausecompleting a restore operation may involve accessing a full backup inaddition to multiple incremental backups.

Any of the above types of backup operations can be at the volume-level,file-level, or block-level. Volume level backup operations generallyinvolve the copying of a data volume (e.g., a logical disk or partition)as a whole. In a file-level backup, the information management system900 may generally track changes to individual files at the file-level,and includes copies of files in the backup copy. In the case of ablock-level backup, files are broken into constituent blocks, andchanges are tracked at the block-level. Upon restore, the informationmanagement system 900 reassembles the blocks into files in a transparentfashion.

Far less data may actually be transferred and copied to the secondarystorage devices 908 during a file-level copy than a volume-level copy.Likewise, a block-level copy may involve the transfer of less data thana file-level copy, resulting in faster execution times. However,restoring a relatively higher-granularity copy can result in longerrestore times. For instance, when restoring a block-level copy, theprocess of locating constituent blocks can sometimes result in longerrestore times as compared to file-level backups. Similar to backupoperations, the other types of secondary copy operations describedherein can also be implemented at either the volume-level, file-level,or block-level.

Archive Operations

Because backup operations generally involve maintaining a version of thecopied data in primary data 912 and also maintaining backup copies insecondary storage device(s) 908, they can consume significant storagecapacity. To help reduce storage consumption, an archive operationaccording to certain embodiments creates a secondary copy 916 by bothcopying and removing source data. Or, seen another way, archiveoperations can involve moving some or all of the source data to thearchive destination. Thus, data satisfying criteria for removal (e.g.,data of a threshold age or size) from the source copy may be removedfrom source storage. Archive copies are sometimes stored in an archiveformat or other non-native application format. The source data may beprimary data 912 or a secondary copy 916, depending on the situation. Aswith backup copies, archive copies can be stored in a format in whichthe data is compressed, encrypted, deduplicated, and/or otherwisemodified from the original application format.

In addition, archive copies may be retained for relatively long periodsof time (e.g., years) and, in some cases, are never deleted. Archivecopies are generally retained for longer periods of time than backupcopies, for example. In certain embodiments, archive copies may be madeand kept for extended periods in order to meet compliance regulations.

Moreover, when primary data 912 is archived, in some cases the archivedprimary data 912 or a portion thereof is deleted when creating thearchive copy. Thus, archiving can serve the purpose of freeing up spacein the primary storage device(s) 904. Similarly, when a secondary copy916 is archived, the secondary copy 916 may be deleted, and an archivecopy can therefore serve the purpose of freeing up space in secondarystorage device(s) 908. In contrast, source copies often remain intactwhen creating backup copies. Examples of compatible data archivingoperations are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,107,298, which isincorporated by reference herein.

Snapshot Operations

Snapshot operations can provide a relatively lightweight, efficientmechanism for protecting data. From an end-user viewpoint, a snapshotmay be thought of as an “instant” image of the primary data 912 at agiven point in time, and may include state and/or status informationrelative to an application that creates/manages the data. In oneembodiment, a snapshot may generally capture the directory structure ofan object in primary data 912 such as a file or volume or other data setat a particular moment in time and may also preserve file attributes andcontents. A snapshot in some cases is created relatively quickly, e.g.,substantially instantly, using a minimum amount of file space, but maystill function as a conventional file system backup.

A “hardware snapshot” (or “hardware-based snapshot”) operation can be asnapshot operation where a target storage device (e.g., a primarystorage device 904 or a secondary storage device 908) performs thesnapshot operation in a self-contained fashion, substantiallyindependently, using hardware, firmware and/or software residing on thestorage device itself. For instance, the storage device may be capableof performing snapshot operations upon request, generally withoutintervention or oversight from any of the other components in theinformation management system 900. In this manner, hardware snapshotscan off-load other components of information management system 900 fromprocessing involved in snapshot creation and management.

A “software snapshot” (or “software-based snapshot”) operation, on theother hand, can be a snapshot operation in which one or more othercomponents in information management system 900 (e.g., client computingdevices 902, data agents 942, etc.) implement a software layer thatmanages the snapshot operation via interaction with the target storagedevice. For instance, the component implementing the snapshot managementsoftware layer may derive a set of pointers and/or data that representsthe snapshot. The snapshot management software layer may then transmitthe same to the target storage device, along with appropriateinstructions for writing the snapshot.

Some types of snapshots do not actually create another physical copy ofall the data as it existed at the particular point in time, but maysimply create pointers that are able to map files and directories tospecific memory locations (e.g., to specific disk blocks) where the dataresides, as it existed at the particular point in time. For example, asnapshot copy may include a set of pointers derived from the file systemor an application. In some other cases, the snapshot may be created atthe block-level, such as where creation of the snapshot occurs withoutawareness of the file system. Each pointer points to a respective storeddata block, so that collectively, the set of pointers reflect thestorage location and state of the data object (e.g., file(s) orvolume(s) or data set(s)) at a particular point in time when thesnapshot copy was created.

Once a snapshot has been taken, subsequent changes to the file systemtypically do not overwrite the blocks in use at the time of thesnapshot. Therefore, the initial snapshot may use only a small amount ofdisk space needed to record a mapping or other data structurerepresenting or otherwise tracking the blocks that correspond to thecurrent state of the file system. Additional disk space is usuallyrequired only when files and directories are actually later modified.Furthermore, when files are modified, typically only the pointers whichmap to blocks are copied, not the blocks themselves. In someembodiments, for example in the case of “copy-on-write” snapshots, whena block changes in primary storage, the block is copied to secondarystorage or cached in primary storage before the block is overwritten inprimary storage, and the pointer to that block changed to reflect thenew location of that block. The snapshot mapping of file system data mayalso be updated to reflect the changed block(s) at that particular pointin time. In some other cases, a snapshot includes a full physical copyof all or substantially all of the data represented by the snapshot.Further examples of snapshot operations are provided in U.S. Pat. No.7,529,782, which is incorporated by reference herein.

A snapshot copy in many cases can be made quickly and withoutsignificantly impacting primary computing resources because largeamounts of data need not be copied or moved. In some embodiments, asnapshot may exist as a virtual file system, parallel to the actual filesystem. Users in some cases gain read-only access to the record of filesand directories of the snapshot. By electing to restore primary data 912from a snapshot taken at a given point in time, users may also returnthe current file system to the state of the file system that existedwhen the snapshot was taken.

Replication Operations

Another type of secondary copy operation is a replication operation.Some types of secondary copies 916 are used to periodically captureimages of primary data 912 at particular points in time (e.g., backups,archives, and snapshots). However, it can also be useful for recoverypurposes to protect primary data 912 in a more continuous fashion, byreplicating the primary data 912 substantially as changes occur. In somecases a replication copy can be a mirror copy, for instance, wherechanges made to primary data 912 are mirrored or substantiallyimmediately copied to another location (e.g., to secondary storagedevice(s) 908). By copying each write operation to the replication copy,two storage systems are kept synchronized or substantially synchronizedso that they are virtually identical at approximately the same time.Where entire disk volumes are mirrored, however, mirroring can requiresignificant amount of storage space and utilizes a large amount ofprocessing resources.

According to some embodiments storage operations are performed onreplicated data that represents a recoverable state, or “known goodstate” of a particular application running on the source system. Forinstance, in certain embodiments, known good replication copies may beviewed as copies of primary data 912. This feature allows the system todirectly access, copy, restore, backup or otherwise manipulate thereplication copies as if the data was the “live”, primary data 912. Thiscan reduce access time, storage utilization, and impact on sourceapplications 910, among other benefits.

Based on known good state information, the information management system900 can replicate sections of application data that represent arecoverable state rather than rote copying of blocks of data. Examplesof compatible replication operations (e.g., continuous data replication)are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,617,262, which is incorporated byreference herein.

Deduplication/Single-Instancing Operations

Another type of data movement operation is deduplication orsingle-instance storage, which is useful to reduce the amount of datawithin the system. For instance, some or all of the above-describedsecondary storage operations can involve deduplication in some fashion.New data is read, broken down into portions (e.g., sub-file levelblocks, files, etc.) of a selected granularity, compared with blocksthat are already stored, and only the new blocks are stored. Blocks thatalready exist are represented as pointers to the already stored data.

In order to streamline the comparison process, the informationmanagement system 900 may calculate and/or store signatures (e.g.,hashes or cryptographically unique IDs) corresponding to the individualdata blocks in a database and compare the signatures instead ofcomparing entire data blocks. In some cases, only a single instance ofeach element is stored, and deduplication operations may therefore bereferred to interchangeably as “single-instancing” operations. Dependingon the implementation, however, deduplication or single-instancingoperations can store more than one instance of certain data blocks, butnonetheless significantly reduce data redundancy.

Depending on the embodiment, deduplication blocks can be of fixed orvariable length. Using variable length blocks can provide enhanceddeduplication by responding to changes in the data stream, but caninvolve complex processing. In some cases, the information managementsystem 900 utilizes a technique for dynamically aligning deduplicationblocks (e.g., fixed-length blocks) based on changing content in the datastream, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,364,652, which is incorporatedby reference herein.

The information management system 900 can perform deduplication in avariety of manners at a variety of locations in the informationmanagement system 900. For instance, in some embodiments, theinformation management system 900 implements “target-side” deduplicationby deduplicating data (e.g., secondary copies 916) stored in thesecondary storage devices 908. In some such cases, the media agents 944are generally configured to manage the deduplication process. Forinstance, one or more of the media agents 944 maintain a correspondingdeduplication database that stores deduplication information (e.g.,datablock signatures). Examples of such a configuration are provided inU.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150826, which is incorporated by referenceherein. Instead of or in combination with “target-side” deduplication,deduplication can also be performed on the “source-side” (or“client-side”), e.g., to reduce the amount of traffic between the mediaagents 944 and the client computing device(s) 902 and/or reduceredundant data stored in the primary storage devices 904. According tovarious implementations, one or more of the storage devices of thetarget-side, source-side, or client-side of an operation can becloud-based storage devices. Thus, the target-side, source-side, and/orclient-side deduplication can be cloud-based deduplication. Inparticular, as discussed previously, the storage manager 940 maycommunicate with other components within the information managementsystem 900 via network protocols and cloud service provider APIs tofacilitate cloud-based deduplication/single instancing. Examples of suchdeduplication techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. Pub. No.2012/0150818, which is incorporated by reference herein. Some othercompatible deduplication/single instancing techniques are described inU.S. Pat. Pub. Nos. 2006/0224846 and 2009/0319534, which areincorporated by reference herein.

Information Lifecycle Management and Hierarchical Storage ManagementOperations

In some embodiments, files and other data over their lifetime move frommore expensive, quick access storage to less expensive, slower accessstorage. Operations associated with moving data through various tiers ofstorage are sometimes referred to as information lifecycle management(ILM) operations.

One type of ILM operation is a hierarchical storage management (HSM)operation. A HSM operation is generally an operation for automaticallymoving data between classes of storage devices, such as betweenhigh-cost and low-cost storage devices. For instance, an HSM operationmay involve movement of data from primary storage devices 904 tosecondary storage devices 908, or between tiers of secondary storagedevices 908. With each tier, the storage devices may be progressivelyrelatively cheaper, have relatively slower access/restore times, etc.For example, movement of data between tiers may occur as data becomesless important over time.

In some embodiments, an HSM operation is similar to an archive operationin that creating an HSM copy may (though not always) involve deletingsome of the source data, e.g., according to one or more criteria relatedto the source data. For example, an HSM copy may include data fromprimary data 912 or a secondary copy 916 that is larger than a givensize threshold or older than a given age threshold and that is stored ina backup format.

Often, and unlike some types of archive copies, HSM data that is removedor aged from the source copy is replaced by a logical reference pointeror stub. The reference pointer or stub can be stored in the primarystorage device 904 (or other source storage device, such as a secondarystorage device 908) to replace the deleted data in primary data 912 (orother source copy) and to point to or otherwise indicate the newlocation in a secondary storage device 908.

According to one example, files are generally moved between higher andlower cost storage depending on how often the files are accessed. When auser requests access to the HSM data that has been removed or migrated,the information management system 900 uses the stub to locate the dataand often make recovery of the data appear transparent, even though theHSM data may be stored at a location different from the remaining sourcedata. In this manner, the data appears to the user (e.g., in file systembrowsing windows and the like) as if it still resides in the sourcelocation (e.g., in a primary storage device 904). The stub may alsoinclude some metadata associated with the corresponding data, so that afile system and/or application can provide some information about thedata object and/or a limited-functionality version (e.g., a preview) ofthe data object.

An HSM copy may be stored in a format other than the native applicationformat (e.g., where the data is compressed, encrypted, deduplicated,and/or otherwise modified from the original application format). In somecases, copies which involve the removal of data from source storage andthe maintenance of stub or other logical reference information on sourcestorage may be referred to generally as “on-line archive copies”. On theother hand, copies which involve the removal of data from source storagewithout the maintenance of stub or other logical reference informationon source storage may be referred to as “off-line archive copies”.Examples of HSM and ILM techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. No.7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference herein.

Auxiliary Copy and Disaster Recovery Operations

An auxiliary copy is generally a copy operation in which a copy iscreated of an existing secondary copy 916. For instance, an initialsecondary copy 916 may be generated using or otherwise be derived fromprimary data 912 (or other data residing in the secondary storagesubsystem 918), whereas an auxiliary copy is generated from the initialsecondary copy 916. Auxiliary copies can be used to create additionalstandby copies of data and may reside on different secondary storagedevices 908 than the initial secondary copies 916. Thus, auxiliarycopies can be used for recovery purposes if initial secondary copies 916become unavailable. Exemplary compatible auxiliary copy techniques aredescribed in further detail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195, which isincorporated by reference herein.

The information management system 900 may also perform disaster recoveryoperations that make or retain disaster recovery copies, often assecondary, high-availability disk copies. The information managementsystem 900 may create secondary disk copies and store the copies atdisaster recovery locations using auxiliary copy or replicationoperations, such as continuous data replication technologies. Dependingon the particular data protection goals, disaster recovery locations canbe remote from the client computing devices 902 and primary storagedevices 904, remote from some or all of the secondary storage devices908, or both.

Data Analysis, Reporting, and Management Operations

Data analysis, reporting, and management operations can be differentthan data movement operations in that they do not necessarily involvethe copying, migration or other transfer of data (e.g., primary data 912or secondary copies 916) between different locations in the system. Forinstance, data analysis operations may involve processing (e.g., offlineprocessing) or modification of already stored primary data 912 and/orsecondary copies 916. However, in some embodiments data analysisoperations are performed in conjunction with data movement operations.Some data analysis operations include content indexing operations andclassification operations which can be useful in leveraging the dataunder management to provide enhanced search and other features. Otherdata analysis operations such as compression and encryption can providedata reduction and security benefits, respectively.

Classification Operations/Content Indexing

In some embodiments, the information management system 900 analyzes andindexes characteristics, content, and metadata associated with the datastored within the primary data 912 and/or secondary copies 916,providing enhanced search and management capabilities for data discoveryand other purposes. The content indexing can be used to identify filesor other data objects having pre-defined content (e.g., user-definedkeywords or phrases, other keywords/phrases that are not defined by auser, etc.), and/or metadata (e.g., email metadata such as “to”, “from”,“cc”, “bcc”, attachment name, received time, etc.).

The information management system 900 generally organizes and cataloguesthe results in a content index, which may be stored within the mediaagent database 952, for example. The content index can also include thestorage locations of (or pointer references to) the indexed data in theprimary data 912 or secondary copies 916, as appropriate. The resultsmay also be stored, in the form of a content index database orotherwise, elsewhere in the information management system 900 (e.g., inthe primary storage devices 904, or in the secondary storage device908). Such index data provides the storage manager 940 or anothercomponent with an efficient mechanism for locating primary data 912and/or secondary copies 916 of data objects that match particularcriteria.

For instance, search criteria can be specified by a user through userinterface 958 of the storage manager 940. In some cases, the informationmanagement system 900 analyzes data and/or metadata in secondary copies916 to create an “off-line” content index, without significantlyimpacting the performance of the client computing devices 902. Dependingon the embodiment, the system can also implement “on-line” contentindexing, e.g., of primary data 912. Examples of compatible contentindexing techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995, which isincorporated by reference herein.

In order to further leverage the data stored in the informationmanagement system 900 to perform these and other tasks, one or morecomponents can be configured to scan data and/or associated metadata forclassification purposes to populate a database (or other data structure)of information (which can be referred to as a “data classificationdatabase” or a “metabase”). Depending on the embodiment, the dataclassification database(s) can be organized in a variety of differentways, including centralization, logical sub-divisions, and/or physicalsub-divisions. For instance, one or more centralized data classificationdatabases may be associated with different subsystems or tiers withinthe information management system 900. As an example, there may be afirst centralized metabase associated with the primary storage subsystem917 and a second centralized metabase associated with the secondarystorage subsystem 918. In other cases, there may be one or moremetabases associated with individual components. For instance, there maybe a dedicated metabase associated with some or all of the clientcomputing devices 902 and/or media agents 944. In some embodiments, adata classification database may reside as one or more data structureswithin management database 946, or may be otherwise associated withstorage manager 940.

In some cases, the metabase(s) may be included in separate database(s)and/or on separate storage device(s) from primary data 912 and/orsecondary copies 916, such that operations related to the metabase donot significantly impact performance on other components in theinformation management system 900. In other cases, the metabase(s) maybe stored along with primary data 912 and/or secondary copies 916. Filesor other data objects can be associated with identifiers (e.g., tagentries, etc.) in the media agent 944 (or other indices) to facilitatesearches of stored data objects. Among a number of other benefits, themetabase can also allow efficient, automatic identification of files orother data objects to associate with secondary copy or other informationmanagement operations (e.g., in lieu of scanning an entire file system).Examples of compatible metabases and data classification operations areprovided in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,229,954 and 7,747,579, which areincorporated by reference herein.

Encryption Operations

The information management system 900 in some cases is configured toprocess data (e.g., files or other data objects, secondary copies 916,etc.), according to an appropriate encryption algorithm (e.g., Blowfish,Advanced Encryption Standard [AES], Triple Data Encryption Standard[3-DES], etc.) to limit access and provide data security in theinformation management system 900.

The information management system 900 in some cases encrypts the data atthe client level, such that the client computing devices 902 (e.g., thedata agents 942) encrypt the data prior to forwarding the data to othercomponents, e.g., before sending the data to media agents 944 during asecondary copy operation. In such cases, the client computing device 902may maintain or have access to an encryption key or passphrase fordecrypting the data upon restore. Encryption can also occur whencreating copies of secondary copies, e.g., when creating auxiliarycopies or archive copies. In yet further embodiments, the secondarystorage devices 908 can implement built-in, high performance hardwareencryption.

Management and Reporting Operations

Certain embodiments leverage the integrated, ubiquitous nature of theinformation management system 900 to provide useful system-widemanagement and reporting functions. Examples of some compatiblemanagement and reporting techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. No.7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference herein.

Operations management can generally include monitoring and managing thehealth and performance of information management system 900 by, withoutlimitation, performing error tracking, generating granularstorage/performance metrics (e.g., job success/failure information,deduplication efficiency, etc.), generating storage modeling and costinginformation, and the like.

As an example, a storage manager 940 or other component in theinformation management system 900 may analyze traffic patterns andsuggest or automatically route data via a particular route to e.g.,certain facilitate storage and minimize congestion. In some embodiments,the system can generate predictions relating to storage operations orstorage operation information. Such predictions described may be basedon a trending analysis that may be used to predict various networkoperations or use of network resources such as network traffic levels,storage media use, use of bandwidth of communication links, use of mediaagent components, etc. Further examples of traffic analysis, trendanalysis, prediction generation, and the like are described in U.S. Pat.No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference herein.

In some configurations, a master storage manager 940 may track thestatus of a set of associated storage operation cells in a hierarchy ofinformation management cells, such as the status of jobs, systemcomponents, system resources, and other items, by communicating withstorage managers 940 (or other components) in the respective storageoperation cells. Moreover, the master storage manager 940 may track thestatus of its associated storage operation cells and associatedinformation management operations by receiving periodic status updatesfrom the storage managers 940 (or other components) in the respectivecells regarding jobs, system components, system resources, and otheritems. In some embodiments, a master storage manager 940 may storestatus information and other information regarding its associatedstorage operation cells and other system information in its index 950(or other location).

The master storage manager 940 or other component in the system may alsodetermine whether a storage-related criteria or other criteria issatisfied, and perform an action or trigger event (e.g., data migration)in response to the criteria being satisfied, such as where a storagethreshold is met for a particular volume, or where inadequate protectionexists for certain data. For instance, in some embodiments, the systemuses data from one or more storage operation cells to advise users ofrisks or indicates actions that can be used to mitigate or otherwiseminimize these risks, and in some embodiments, dynamically takes actionto mitigate or minimize these risks. For example, an informationmanagement policy may specify certain requirements (e.g., that a storagedevice should maintain a certain amount of free space, that secondarycopies should occur at a particular interval, that data should be agedand migrated to other storage after a particular period, that data on asecondary volume should always have a certain level of availability andbe able to be restored within a given time period, that data on asecondary volume may be mirrored or otherwise migrated to a specifiednumber of other volumes, etc.). If a risk condition or other criteria istriggered, the system can notify the user of these conditions and maysuggest (or automatically implement) an action to mitigate or otherwiseaddress the condition or minimize risk. For example, the system mayindicate that data from a primary copy 912 should be migrated to asecondary storage device 908 to free space on the primary storage device904. Examples of the use of risk factors and other triggering criteriaare described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated byreference herein.

In some embodiments, the system 900 may also determine whether a metricor other indication satisfies a particular storage criteria and, if so,perform an action. For example, as previously described, a storagepolicy or other definition might indicate that a storage manager 940should initiate a particular action if a storage metric or otherindication drops below or otherwise fails to satisfy specified criteriasuch as a threshold of data protection. Examples of such metrics aredescribed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by referenceherein.

In some embodiments, risk factors may be quantified into certainmeasurable service or risk levels for ease of comprehension. Forexample, certain applications and associated data may be considered tobe more important by an enterprise than other data and services.Financial compliance data, for example, may be of greater importancethan marketing materials, etc. Network administrators may assignpriorities or “weights” to certain data or applications, correspondingto its importance (priority value). The level of compliance with thestorage operations specified for these applications may also be assigneda certain value. Thus, the health, impact and overall importance of aservice on an enterprise may be determined, for example, by measuringthe compliance value and calculating the product of the priority valueand the compliance value to determine the “service level” and comparingit to certain operational thresholds to determine if the operation isbeing performed within a specified data protection service level.Further examples of the service level determination are provided in U.S.Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference herein.

The system 900 may additionally calculate data costing and dataavailability associated with information management operation cellsaccording to an embodiment of the invention. For instance, data receivedfrom the cell may be used in conjunction with hardware-relatedinformation and other information about network elements to generateindications of costs associated with storage of particular data in thesystem or the availability of particular data in the system. In general,components in the system are identified and associated information isobtained (dynamically or manually). Characteristics or metricsassociated with the network elements may be identified and associatedwith that component element for further use generating an indication ofstorage cost or data availability. Exemplary information generated couldinclude how fast a particular department is using up available storagespace, how long data would take to recover over a particular networkpathway from a particular secondary storage device, costs over time,etc. Moreover, in some embodiments, such information may be used todetermine or predict the overall cost associated with the storage ofcertain information. The cost associated with hosting a certainapplication may be based, at least in part, on the type of media onwhich the data resides. Storage devices may be assigned to a particularcost category which is indicative of the cost of storing information onthat device. Further examples of costing techniques are described inU.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference herein.

Any of the above types of information (e.g., information related totrending, predictions, job, cell or component status, risk, servicelevel, costing, etc.) can generally be provided to users via the userinterface 958 in a single, integrated view or console. The console maysupport a reporting capability that allows for the generation of avariety of reports, which may be tailored to a particular aspect ofinformation management. Report types may include: scheduling, eventmanagement, media management and data aging. Available reports may alsoinclude backup history, data aging history, auxiliary copy history, jobhistory, library and drive, media in library, restore history, andstorage policy. Such reports may be specified and created at a certainpoint in time as a network analysis, forecasting, or provisioning tool.Integrated reports may also be generated that illustrate storage andperformance metrics, risks and storage costing information. Moreover,users may create their own reports based on specific needs.

The integrated user interface 958 can include an option to show a“virtual view” of the system that graphically depicts the variouscomponents in the system using appropriate icons. As one example, theuser interface 958 may provide a graphical depiction of one or moreprimary storage devices 904, the secondary storage devices 908, dataagents 942 and/or media agents 944, and their relationship to oneanother in the information management system 900. The operationsmanagement functionality can facilitate planning and decision-making.For example, in some embodiments, a user may view the status of some orall jobs as well as the status of each component of the informationmanagement system 900. Users may then plan and make decisions based onthis data. For instance, a user may view high-level informationregarding storage operations for the information management system 900,such as job status, component status, resource status (e.g., networkpathways, etc.), and other information. The user may also drill down oruse other means to obtain more detailed information regarding aparticular component, job, or the like.

Further examples of some reporting techniques and associated interfacesproviding an integrated view of an information management system areprovided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by referenceherein.

The information management system 900 can also be configured to performsystem-wide e-discovery operations in some embodiments. In general,e-discovery operations provide a unified collection and searchcapability for data in the system, such as data stored in the secondarystorage devices 908 (e.g., backups, archives, or other secondary copies916). For example, the information management system 900 may constructand maintain a virtual repository for data stored in the informationmanagement system 900 that is integrated across source applications 910,different storage device types, etc. According to some embodiments,e-discovery utilizes other techniques described herein, such as dataclassification and/or content indexing.

Information Management Policies

As indicated previously, an information management policy 948 caninclude a data structure or other information source that specifies aset of parameters (e.g., criteria and rules) associated with secondarycopy or other information management operations.

One type of information management policy 948 is a storage policy.According to certain embodiments, a storage policy generally comprises adata structure or other information source that defines (or includesinformation sufficient to determine) a set of preferences or othercriteria for performing information management operations. Storagepolicies can include one or more of the following items: (1) what datawill be associated with the storage policy; (2) a destination to whichthe data will be stored; (3) datapath information specifying how thedata will be communicated to the destination; (4) the type of storageoperation to be performed; and (5) retention information specifying howlong the data will be retained at the destination.

As an illustrative example, data associated with a storage policy can belogically organized into groups. In some cases, these logical groupingscan be referred to as “sub-clients”. A sub-client may represent staticor dynamic associations of portions of a data volume. Sub-clients mayrepresent mutually exclusive portions. Thus, in certain embodiments, aportion of data may be given a label and the association is stored as astatic entity in an index, database or other storage location.

Sub-clients may also be used as an effective administrative scheme oforganizing data according to data type, department within theenterprise, storage preferences, or the like. Depending on theconfiguration, sub-clients can correspond to files, folders, virtualmachines, databases, etc. In one exemplary scenario, an administratormay find it preferable to separate e-mail data from financial data usingtwo different sub-clients.

A storage policy can define where data is stored by specifying a targetor destination storage device (or group of storage devices). Forinstance, where the secondary storage device 908 includes a group ofdisk libraries, the storage policy may specify a particular disk libraryfor storing the sub-clients associated with the policy. As anotherexample, where the secondary storage devices 908 include one or moretape libraries, the storage policy may specify a particular tape libraryfor storing the sub-clients associated with the storage policy, and mayalso specify a drive pool and a tape pool defining a group of tapedrives and a group of tapes, respectively, for use in storing thesub-client data. While information in the storage policy can bestatically assigned in some cases, some or all of the information in thestorage policy can also be dynamically determined based on criteria,which can be set forth in the storage policy. For instance, based onsuch criteria, a particular destination storage device(s) (or otherparameter of the storage policy) may be determined based oncharacteristics associated with the data involved in a particularstorage operation, device availability (e.g., availability of asecondary storage device 908 or a media agent 944), network status andconditions (e.g., identified bottlenecks), user credentials, and thelike).

Datapath information can also be included in the storage policy. Forinstance, the storage policy may specify network pathways and componentsto utilize when moving the data to the destination storage device(s). Insome embodiments, the storage policy specifies one or more media agents944 for conveying data (e.g., one or more sub-clients) associated withthe storage policy between the source (e.g., one or more host clientcomputing devices 902) and destination (e.g., a particular targetsecondary storage device 908).

A storage policy can also specify the type(s) of operations associatedwith the storage policy, such as a backup, archive, snapshot, auxiliarycopy, or the like. Retention information can specify how long the datawill be kept, depending on organizational needs (e.g., a number of days,months, years, etc.)

The information management policies 948 may also include one or morescheduling policies specifying when and how often to perform operations.Scheduling information may specify with what frequency (e.g., hourly,weekly, daily, event-based, etc.) or under what triggering conditionssecondary copy or other information management operations will takeplace. Scheduling policies in some cases are associated with particularcomponents, such as particular logical groupings of data associated witha storage policy (e.g., a sub-client), client computing device 902, andthe like. In one configuration, a separate scheduling policy ismaintained for particular logical groupings of data on a clientcomputing device 902. The scheduling policy specifies that those logicalgroupings are to be moved to secondary storage devices 908 every houraccording to storage policies associated with the respectivesub-clients.

When adding a new client computing device 902, administrators canmanually configure information management policies 948 and/or othersettings, e.g., via the user interface 958. However, this can be aninvolved process resulting in delays, and it may be desirable to begindata protecting operations quickly.

Thus, in some embodiments, the information management system 900automatically applies a default configuration to client computing device902. As one example, when one or more data agent(s) 942 are installed onone or more client computing devices 902, the installation script mayregister the client computing device 902 with the storage manager 940,which in turn applies the default configuration to the new clientcomputing device 902. In this manner, data protection operations canbegin substantially immediately. The default configuration can include adefault storage policy, for example, and can specify any appropriateinformation sufficient to begin data protection operations. This caninclude a type of data protection operation, scheduling information, atarget secondary storage device 908, data path information (e.g., aparticular media agent 944), and the like.

Other types of information management policies 948 are possible. Forinstance, the information management policies 948 can also include oneor more audit or security policies. An audit policy is a set ofpreferences, rules and/or criteria that protect sensitive data in theinformation management system 900. For example, an audit policy maydefine “sensitive objects” as files or objects that contain particularkeywords (e.g., “confidential,” or “privileged”) and/or are associatedwith particular keywords (e.g., in metadata) or particular flags (e.g.,in metadata identifying a document or email as personal, confidential,etc.).

An audit policy may further specify rules for handling sensitiveobjects. As an example, an audit policy may require that a reviewerapprove the transfer of any sensitive objects to a cloud storage site,and that if approval is denied for a particular sensitive object, thesensitive object should be transferred to a local primary storage device904 instead. To facilitate this approval, the audit policy may furtherspecify how a secondary storage computing device 906 or other systemcomponent should notify a reviewer that a sensitive object is slated fortransfer.

In some implementations, the information management policies 948 mayinclude one or more provisioning policies. A provisioning policy caninclude a set of preferences, priorities, rules, and/or criteria thatspecify how client computing devices 902 (or groups thereof) may utilizesystem resources, such as available storage on cloud storage and/ornetwork bandwidth. A provisioning policy specifies, for example, dataquotas for particular client computing devices 902 (e.g., a number ofgigabytes that can be stored monthly, quarterly or annually). Thestorage manager 940 or other components may enforce the provisioningpolicy. For instance, the media agents 944 may enforce the policy whentransferring data to secondary storage devices 908. If a clientcomputing device 902 exceeds a quota, a budget for the client computingdevice 902 (or associated department) is adjusted accordingly or analert may trigger.

While the above types of information management policies 948 have beendescribed as separate policies, one or more of these can be generallycombined into a single information management policy 948. For instance,a storage policy may also include or otherwise be associated with one ormore scheduling, audit, or provisioning policies. Moreover, whilestorage policies are typically associated with moving and storing data,other policies may be associated with other types of informationmanagement operations. The following is a non-exhaustive list of itemsthe information management policies 948 may specify:

-   -   schedules or other timing information, e.g., specifying when        and/or how often to perform information management operations;    -   the type of copy 916 (e.g., type of secondary copy) and/or copy        format (e.g., snapshot, backup, archive, HSM, etc.);    -   a location or a class or quality of storage for storing        secondary copies 916 (e.g., one or more particular secondary        storage devices 908);    -   preferences regarding whether and how to encrypt, compress,        deduplicate, or otherwise modify or transform secondary copies        916;    -   which system components and/or network pathways (e.g., preferred        media agents 944) should be used to perform secondary storage        operations;    -   resource allocation between different computing devices or other        system components used in performing information management        operations (e.g., bandwidth allocation, available storage        capacity, etc.);    -   whether and how to synchronize or otherwise distribute files or        other data objects across multiple computing devices or hosted        services; and    -   retention information specifying the length of time primary data        912 and/or secondary copies 916 should be retained, e.g., in a        particular class or tier of storage devices, or within the        information management system 900.

Policies can additionally specify or depend on a variety of historicalor current criteria that may be used to determine which rules to applyto a particular data object, system component, or information managementoperation, such as:

-   -   frequency with which primary data 912 or a secondary copy 916 of        a data object or metadata has been or is predicted to be used,        accessed, or modified;    -   time-related factors (e.g., aging information such as time since        the creation or modification of a data object);    -   deduplication information (e.g., hashes, data blocks,        deduplication block size, deduplication efficiency or other        metrics);    -   an estimated or historic usage or cost associated with different        components (e.g., with secondary storage devices 908);    -   the identity of users, applications 910, client computing        devices 902 and/or other computing devices that created,        accessed, modified, or otherwise utilized primary data 912 or        secondary copies 916;    -   a relative sensitivity (e.g., confidentiality) of a data object,        e.g., as determined by its content and/or metadata;    -   the current or historical storage capacity of various storage        devices;    -   the current or historical network capacity of network pathways        connecting various components within the storage operation cell;    -   access control lists or other security information; and    -   the content of a particular data object (e.g., its textual        content) or of metadata associated with the data object.        Exemplary Storage Policy and Secondary Storage Operations

FIG. 9E shows a data flow data diagram depicting performance of storageoperations by an embodiment of an information management system 900,according to an exemplary storage policy 948A. The informationmanagement system 900 includes a storage manger 940, a client computingdevice 902 having a file system data agent 942A and an email data agent942B residing thereon, a primary storage device 904, two media agents944A, 944B, and two secondary storage devices 908A, 908B: a disk library908A and a tape library 908B. As shown, the primary storage device 904includes primary data 912A, 912B associated with a logical grouping ofdata associated with a file system) and a logical grouping of dataassociated with email data, respectively. Although for simplicity thelogical grouping of data associated with the file system is referred toas a file system sub-client, and the logical grouping of data associatedwith the email data is referred to as an email sub-client, thetechniques described with respect to FIG. 9E can be utilized inconjunction with data that is organized in a variety of other manners.

As indicated by the dashed box, the second media agent 944B and the tapelibrary 908B are “off-site”, and may therefore be remotely located fromthe other components in the information management system 900 (e.g., ina different city, office building, etc.). Indeed, “off-site” may referto a magnetic tape located in storage, which must be manually retrievedand loaded into a tape drive to be read. In this manner, informationstored on the tape library 908B may provide protection in the event of adisaster or other failure.

The file system sub-client and its associated primary data 912A incertain embodiments generally comprise information generated by the filesystem and/or operating system of the client computing device 902, andcan include, for example, file system data (e.g., regular files, filetables, mount points, etc.), operating system data (e.g., registries,event logs, etc.), and the like. The e-mail sub-client, on the otherhand, and its associated primary data 912B, include data generated by ane-mail client application operating on the client computing device 902,and can include mailbox information, folder information, emails,attachments, associated database information, and the like. As describedabove, the sub-clients can be logical containers, and the data includedin the corresponding primary data 912A, 912B may or may not be storedcontiguously.

The exemplary storage policy 948A includes backup copy preferences orrule set 960, disaster recovery copy preferences rule set 962, andcompliance copy preferences or rule set 964. The backup copy rule set960 specifies that it is associated with a file system sub-client 966and an email sub-client 968. Each of these sub-clients 966, 968 areassociated with the particular client computing device 902. The backupcopy rule set 960 further specifies that the backup operation will bewritten to the disk library 908A, and designates a particular mediaagent 944A to convey the data to the disk library 908A. Finally, thebackup copy rule set 960 specifies that backup copies created accordingto the rule set 960 are scheduled to be generated on an hourly basis andto be retained for 30 days. In some other embodiments, schedulinginformation is not included in the storage policy 948A, and is insteadspecified by a separate scheduling policy.

The disaster recovery copy rule set 962 is associated with the same twosub-clients 966, 968. However, the disaster recovery copy rule set 962is associated with the tape library 908B, unlike the backup copy ruleset 960. Moreover, the disaster recovery copy rule set 962 specifiesthat a different media agent 944B than the media agent 944A associatedwith the backup copy rule set 960 will be used to convey the data to thetape library 908B. As indicated, disaster recovery copies createdaccording to the rule set 962 will be retained for 60 days, and will begenerated on a daily basis. Disaster recovery copies generated accordingto the disaster recovery copy rule set 962 can provide protection in theevent of a disaster or other data-loss event that would affect thebackup copy 916A maintained on the disk library 908A.

The compliance copy rule set 964 is only associated with the emailsub-client 968, and not the file system sub-client 966. Compliancecopies generated according to the compliance copy rule set 964 willtherefore not include primary data 912A from the file system sub-client966. For instance, the organization may be under an obligation to storeand maintain copies of email data for a particular period of time (e.g.,10 years) to comply with state or federal regulations, while similarregulations do not apply to the file system data. The compliance copyrule set 964 is associated with the same tape library 908B and mediaagent 944B as the disaster recovery copy rule set 962, although adifferent storage device or media agent could be used in otherembodiments. Finally, the compliance copy rule set 964 specifies thatcopies generated under the compliance copy rule set 964 will be retainedfor 10 years, and will be generated on a quarterly basis.

At step 1, the storage manager 940 initiates a backup operationaccording to the backup copy rule set 960. For instance, a schedulingservice running on the storage manager 940 accesses schedulinginformation from the backup copy rule set 960 or a separate schedulingpolicy associated with the client computing device 902, and initiates abackup copy operation on an hourly basis. Thus, at the scheduled timeslot the storage manager 940 sends instructions to the client computingdevice 902 to begin the backup operation.

At step 2, the file system data agent 942A and the email data agent 942Bresiding on the client computing device 902 respond to the instructionsreceived from the storage manager 940 by accessing and processing theprimary data 912A, 912B involved in the copy operation from the primarystorage device 904. Because the operation is a backup copy operation,the data agent(s) 942A, 942B may format the data into a backup format orotherwise process the data.

At step 3, the client computing device 902 communicates the retrieved,processed data to the first media agent 944A, as directed by the storagemanager 940, according to the backup copy rule set 960. In some otherembodiments, the information management system 900 may implement aload-balancing, availability-based, or other appropriate algorithm toselect from the available set of media agents 944A, 944B. Regardless ofthe manner the media agent 944A is selected, the storage manager 940 mayfurther keep a record in the storage manager database 946 of theassociation between the selected media agent 944A and the clientcomputing device 902 and/or between the selected media agent 944A andthe backup copy 916A.

The target media agent 944A receives the data from the client computingdevice 902, and at step 4 conveys the data to the disk library 908A tocreate the backup copy 916A, again at the direction of the storagemanager 940 and according to the backup copy rule set 960. The secondarystorage device 908A can be selected in other ways. For instance, themedia agent 944A may have a dedicated association with a particularsecondary storage device(s), or the storage manager 940 or media agent944A may select from a plurality of secondary storage devices, e.g.,according to availability, using one of the techniques described in U.S.Pat. No. 7,246,207, which is incorporated by reference herein.

The media agent 944A can also update its index 953 to include dataand/or metadata related to the backup copy 916A, such as informationindicating where the backup copy 916A resides on the disk library 908A,data and metadata for cache retrieval, etc. After the 30 day retentionperiod expires, the storage manager 940 instructs the media agent 944Ato delete the backup copy 916A from the disk library 908A. The storagemanager 940 may similarly update its index 950 to include informationrelating to the storage operation, such as information relating to thetype of storage operation, a physical location associated with one ormore copies created by the storage operation, the time the storageoperation was performed, status information relating to the storageoperation, the components involved in the storage operation, and thelike. In some cases, the storage manager 940 may update its index 950 toinclude some or all of the information stored in the index 953 of themedia agent 944A.

At step 5, the storage manager 940 initiates the creation of a disasterrecovery copy 916B according to the disaster recovery copy rule set 962.For instance, at step 6, based on instructions received from the storagemanager 940 at step 5, the specified media agent 944B retrieves the mostrecent backup copy 916A from the disk library 908A.

At step 7, again at the direction of the storage manager 940 and asspecified in the disaster recovery copy rule set 962, the media agent944B uses the retrieved data to create a disaster recovery copy 916B onthe tape library 908B. In some cases, the disaster recovery copy 916B isa direct, mirror copy of the backup copy 916A, and remains in the backupformat. In other embodiments, the disaster recovery copy 916B may begenerated in some other manner, such as by using the primary data 912A,912B from the primary storage device 904 as source data. The disasterrecovery copy operation is initiated once a day and the disasterrecovery copies 9168 are deleted after 60 days.

At step 8, the storage manager 940 initiates the creation of acompliance copy 916C, according to the compliance copy rule set 964. Forinstance, the storage manager 940 instructs the media agent 944B tocreate the compliance copy 916C on the tape library 908B at step 9, asspecified in the compliance copy rule set 964. In the example, thecompliance copy 916C is generated using the disaster recovery copy 916B.In other embodiments, the compliance copy 916C is instead generatedusing either the primary data 912B corresponding to the email sub-clientor using the backup copy 916A from the disk library 908A as source data.As specified, in the illustrated example, compliance copies 916C arecreated quarterly, and are deleted after ten years.

While not shown in FIG. 9E, at some later point in time, a restoreoperation can be initiated involving one or more of the secondary copies916A, 916B, 916C. As one example, a user may manually initiate a restoreof the backup copy 916A by interacting with the user interface 958 ofthe storage manager 940. The storage manager 940 then accesses data inits index 950 (and/or the respective storage policy 948A) associatedwith the selected backup copy 916A to identify the appropriate mediaagent 944A and/or secondary storage device 908A.

In other cases, a media agent may be selected for use in the restoreoperation based on a load balancing algorithm, an availability basedalgorithm, or other criteria. The selected media agent 944A retrievesthe data from the disk library 908A. For instance, the media agent 944Amay access its index 953 to identify a location of the backup copy 916Aon the disk library 908A, or may access location information residing onthe disk 908A itself.

When the backup copy 916A was recently created or accessed, the mediaagent 944A accesses a cached version of the backup copy 916A residing inthe index 953, without having to access the disk library 908A for someor all of the data. Once it has retrieved the backup copy 916A, themedia agent 944A communicates the data to the source client computingdevice 902. Upon receipt, the file system data agent 942A and the emaildata agent 942B may unpackage (e.g., restore from a backup format to thenative application format) the data in the backup copy 916A and restorethe unpackaged data to the primary storage device 904.

Exemplary Applications of Storage Policies

The storage manager 940 may permit a user to specify aspects of thestorage policy 948A. For example, the storage policy can be modified toinclude information governance policies to define how data should bemanaged in order to comply with a certain regulation or businessobjective. The various policies may be stored, for example, in thedatabase 946. An information governance policy may comprise aclassification policy, which is described herein. An informationgovernance policy may align with one or more compliance tasks that areimposed by regulations or business requirements. Examples of informationgovernance policies might include a Sarbanes-Oxley policy, a HIPAApolicy, an electronic discovery (E-Discovery) policy, and so on.

Information governance policies allow administrators to obtain differentperspectives on all of an organization's online and offline data,without the need for a dedicated data silo created solely for eachdifferent viewpoint. As described previously, the data storage systemsherein build a centralized index that reflects the contents of adistributed data set that spans numerous clients and storage devices,including both primary and secondary copies, and online and offlinecopies. An organization may apply multiple information governancepolicies in a top-down manner over that unified data set and indexingschema in order to permit an organization to view and manipulate thesingle data set through different lenses, each of which is adapted to aparticular compliance or business goal. Thus, for example, by applyingan E-discovery policy and a Sarbanes-Oxley policy, two different groupsof users in an organization can conduct two very different analyses ofthe same underlying physical set of data copies, which may bedistributed throughout the organization.

A classification policy defines a taxonomy of classification terms ortags relevant to a compliance task and/or business objective. Aclassification policy may also associate a defined tag with aclassification rule. A classification rule defines a particularcombination of data criteria, such as users who have created, accessedor modified a document or data object; file or application types;content or metadata keywords; clients or storage locations; dates ofdata creation and/or access; review status or other status within aworkflow (e.g., reviewed or un-reviewed); modification times or types ofmodifications; and/or any other data attributes. A classification rulemay also be defined using other classification tags in the taxonomy. Thevarious criteria used to define a classification rule may be combined inany suitable fashion, for example, via Boolean operators, to define acomplex classification rule. As an example, an E-discoveryclassification policy might define a classification tag “privileged”that is associated with documents or data objects that (1) were createdor modified by legal department staff, (2) were sent to or received fromoutside counsel via email, and/or (3) contain one of the followingkeywords: “privileged” or “attorney,” “counsel”, or other terms.

One specific type of classification tag, which may be added to an indexat the time of indexing, is an entity tag. An entity tag may be, forexample, any content that matches a defined data mask format. Examplesof entity tags might include, e.g., social security numbers (e.g., anynumerical content matching the formatting mask XXX-XX-XXXX), credit cardnumbers (e.g., content having a 13-16 digit string of numbers), SKUnumbers, product numbers, etc.

A user may define a classification policy by indicating criteria,parameters or descriptors of the policy via a graphical user interfacethat provides facilities to present information and receive input data,such as a form or page with fields to be filled in, pull-down menus orentries allowing one or more of several options to be selected, buttons,sliders, hypertext links or other known user interface tools forreceiving user input. For example, a user may define certain entitytags, such as a particular product number or project ID code that isrelevant in the organization.

In some implementations, the classification policy can be implementedusing cloud-based techniques. For example, the storage devices may becloud storage devices, and the storage manager 940 may execute cloudservice provider API over a network to classify data stored on cloudstorage devices.

Exemplary Secondary Copy Formatting

The formatting and structure of secondary copies 916 can vary, dependingon the embodiment. In some cases, secondary copies 916 are formatted asa series of logical data units or “chunks” (e.g., 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4GB, or 8 GB chunks). This can facilitate efficient communication andwriting to secondary storage devices 908, e.g., according to resourceavailability. For example, a single secondary copy 916 may be written ona chunk-by-chunk basis to a single secondary storage device 908 oracross multiple secondary storage devices 908. In some cases, users canselect different chunk sizes, e.g., to improve throughput to tapestorage devices.

Generally, each chunk can include a header and a payload. The payloadcan include files (or other data units) or subsets thereof included inthe chunk, whereas the chunk header generally includes metadata relatingto the chunk, some or all of which may be derived from the payload. Forexample, during a secondary copy operation, the media agent 944, storagemanager 940, or other component may divide the associated files intochunks and generate headers for each chunk by processing the constituentfiles.

The headers can include a variety of information such as fileidentifier(s), volume(s), offset(s), or other information associatedwith the payload data items, a chunk sequence number, etc. Importantly,in addition to being stored with the secondary copy 916 on the secondarystorage device 908, the chunk headers can also be stored to the index953 of the associated media agent(s) 944 and/or the index 950. This isuseful in some cases for providing faster processing of secondary copies916 during restores or other operations. In some cases, once a chunk issuccessfully transferred to a secondary storage device 908, thesecondary storage device 908 returns an indication of receipt, e.g., tothe media agent 944 and/or storage manager 940, which may update theirrespective indexes 953, 950 accordingly. During restore, chunks may beprocessed (e.g., by the media agent 944) according to the information inthe chunk header to reassemble the files.

Data can also be communicated within the information management system900 in data channels that connect the client computing devices 902 tothe secondary storage devices 908. These data channels can be referredto as “data streams”, and multiple data streams can be employed toparallelize an information management operation, improving data transferrate, among providing other advantages. Example data formattingtechniques including techniques involving data streaming, chunking, andthe use of other data structures in creating copies (e.g., secondarycopies) are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,315,923 and 8,156,086, and8,578,120, each of which is incorporated by reference herein.

FIGS. 9F and 9G are diagrams of example data streams 970 and 971,respectively, which may be employed for performing data storageoperations. Referring to FIG. 9F, the data agent 942 forms the datastream 970 from the data associated with a client computing device 902(e.g., primary data 912). The data stream 970 is composed of multiplepairs of stream header 972 and stream data (or stream payload) 974. Thedata streams 970 and 971 shown in the illustrated example are for asingle-instanced storage operation, and a stream payload 974 thereforemay include both single-instance (“SI”) data and/or non-SI data. Astream header 972 includes metadata about the stream payload 974. Thismetadata may include, for example, a length of the stream payload 974,an indication of whether the stream payload 974 is encrypted, anindication of whether the stream payload 974 is compressed, an archivefile identifier (ID), an indication of whether the stream payload 974 issingle instanceable, and an indication of whether the stream payload 974is a start of a block of data.

Referring to FIG. 9G, the data stream 971 has the stream header 972 andstream payload 974 aligned into multiple data blocks. In this example,the data blocks are of size 64 KB. The first two stream header 972 andstream payload 974 pairs comprise a first data block of size 64 KB. Thefirst stream header 972 indicates that the length of the succeedingstream payload 974 is 63 KB and that it is the start of a data block.The next stream header 972 indicates that the succeeding stream payload974 has a length of 1 KB and that it is not the start of a new datablock. Immediately following stream payload 974 is a pair comprising anidentifier header 976 and identifier data 978. The identifier header 976includes an indication that the succeeding identifier data 978 includesthe identifier for the immediately previous data block. The identifierdata 978 includes the identifier that the data agent 942 generated forthe data block. The data stream 971 also includes other stream header972 and stream payload 974 pairs, which may be for SI data and/or fornon-SI data.

FIG. 9H is a diagram illustrating the data structures 980 that may beused to store blocks of SI data and non-SI data on the storage device(e.g., secondary storage device 908). According to certain embodiments,the data structures 980 do not form part of a native file system of thestorage device. The data structures 980 include one or more volumefolders 982, one or more chunk folders 984/985 within the volume folder982, and multiple files within the chunk folder 984. Each chunk folder984/985 includes a metadata file 986/987, a metadata index file 988/989,one or more container files 990/991/993, and a container index file992/994. The metadata file 986/987 stores non-SI data blocks as well aslinks to SI data blocks stored in container files. The metadata indexfile 988/989 stores an index to the data in the metadata file 986/987.The container files 990/991/993 store SI data blocks. The containerindex file 992/994 stores an index to the container files 990/991/993.Among other things, the container index file 992/994 stores anindication of whether a corresponding block in a container file990/991/993 is referred to by a link in a metadata file 986/987. Forexample, data block B2 in the container file 990 is referred to by alink in the metadata file 987 in the chunk folder 985. Accordingly, thecorresponding index entry in the container index file 992 indicates thatthe data block B2 in the container file 990 is referred to. As anotherexample, data block B1 in the container file 991 is referred to by alink in the metadata file 987, and so the corresponding index entry inthe container index file 992 indicates that this data block is referredto.

As an example, the data structures 980 illustrated in FIG. 9H may havebeen created as a result of two storage operations involving two clientcomputing devices 902. For example, a first storage operation on a firstclient computing device 902 could result in the creation of the firstchunk folder 984, and a second storage operation on a second clientcomputing device 902 could result in the creation of the second chunkfolder 985. The container files 990/991 in the first chunk folder 984would contain the blocks of SI data of the first client computing device902. If the two client computing devices 902 have substantially similardata, the second storage operation on the data of the second clientcomputing device 902 would result in the media agent 944 storingprimarily links to the data blocks of the first client computing device902 that are already stored in the container files 990/991. Accordingly,while a first storage operation may result in storing nearly all of thedata subject to the storage operation, subsequent storage operationsinvolving similar data may result in substantial data storage spacesavings, because links to already stored data blocks can be storedinstead of additional instances of data blocks.

If the operating system of the secondary storage computing device 906 onwhich the media agent 944 resides supports sparse files, then when themedia agent 944 creates container files 990/991/993, it can create themas sparse files. As previously described, a sparse file is type of filethat may include empty space (e.g., a sparse file may have real datawithin it, such as at the beginning of the file and/or at the end of thefile, but may also have empty space in it that is not storing actualdata, such as a contiguous range of bytes all having a value of zero).Having the container files 990/991/993 be sparse files allows the mediaagent 944 to free up space in the container files 990/991/993 whenblocks of data in the container files 990/991/993 no longer need to bestored on the storage devices. In some examples, the media agent 944creates a new container file 990/991/993 when a container file990/991/993 either includes 100 blocks of data or when the size of thecontainer file 990 exceeds 50 MB. In other examples, the media agent 944creates a new container file 990/991/993 when a container file990/991/993 satisfies other criteria (e.g., it contains fromapproximately 100 to approximately 1000 blocks or when its size exceedsapproximately 50 MB to 1 GB).

In some cases, a file on which a storage operation is performed maycomprise a large number of data blocks. For example, a 100 MB file maybe comprised in 400 data blocks of size 256 KB. If such a file is to bestored, its data blocks may span more than one container file, or evenmore than one chunk folder. As another example, a database file of 20 GBmay comprise over 40,000 data blocks of size 512 KB. If such a databasefile is to be stored, its data blocks will likely span multiplecontainer files, multiple chunk folders, and potentially multiple volumefolders. As described in detail herein, restoring such files may thusrequiring accessing multiple container files, chunk folders, and/orvolume folders to obtain the requisite data blocks.

Terminology

Conditional language, such as, among others, “can,” “could,” “might,” or“may,” unless specifically stated otherwise, or otherwise understoodwithin the context as used, is generally intended to convey that certainembodiments include, while other embodiments do not include, certainfeatures, elements and/or steps. Thus, such conditional language is notgenerally intended to imply that features, elements and/or steps are inany way required for one or more embodiments or that one or moreembodiments necessarily include logic for deciding, with or without userinput or prompting, whether these features, elements and/or steps areincluded or are to be performed in any particular embodiment.

Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, throughout thedescription and the claims, the words “comprise,” “comprising,” and thelike are to be construed in an inclusive sense, as opposed to anexclusive or exhaustive sense; that is to say, in the sense of“including, but not limited to.” As used herein, the terms “connected,”“coupled,” or any variant thereof means any connection or coupling,either direct or indirect, between two or more elements; the coupling orconnection between the elements can be physical, logical, or acombination thereof. Additionally, the words “herein,” “above,” “below,”and words of similar import, when used in this application, refer tothis application as a whole and not to any particular portions of thisapplication. Where the context permits, words in the above DetailedDescription using the singular or plural number may also include theplural or singular number respectively. The word “or” in reference to alist of two or more items, covers all of the following interpretationsof the word: any one of the items in the list, all of the items in thelist, and any combination of the items in the list. Likewise the term“and/or” in reference to a list of two or more items, covers all of thefollowing interpretations of the word: any one of the items in the list,all of the items in the list, and any combination of the items in thelist.

Depending on the embodiment, certain acts, events, or functions of anyof the algorithms described herein can be performed in a differentsequence, can be added, merged, or left out altogether (e.g., not alldescribed acts or events are necessary for the practice of thealgorithms). Moreover, in certain embodiments, acts or events can beperformed concurrently, e.g., through multi-threaded processing,interrupt processing, or multiple processors or processor cores or onother parallel architectures, rather than sequentially.

Systems and modules described herein may comprise software, firmware,hardware, or any combination(s) of software, firmware, or hardwaresuitable for the purposes described herein. Software and other modulesmay reside on servers, workstations, personal computers, computerizedtablets, PDAs, and other devices suitable for the purposes describedherein. Software and other modules may be accessible via local memory,via a network, via a browser, or via other means suitable for thepurposes described herein. Data structures described herein may comprisecomputer files, variables, programming arrays, programming structures,or any electronic information storage schemes or methods, or anycombinations thereof, suitable for the purposes described herein. Userinterface elements described herein may comprise elements from graphicaluser interfaces, command line interfaces, and other suitable interfaces.

Further, the processing of the various components of the illustratedsystems can be distributed across multiple machines, networks, and othercomputing resources. In addition, two or more components of a system canbe combined into fewer components. Various components of the illustratedsystems can be implemented in one or more virtual machines, rather thanin dedicated computer hardware systems. Likewise, the data repositoriesshown can represent physical and/or logical data storage, including, forexample, storage area networks or other distributed storage systems.Moreover, in some embodiments the connections between the componentsshown represent possible paths of data flow, rather than actualconnections between hardware. While some examples of possibleconnections are shown, any of the subset of the components shown cancommunicate with any other subset of components in variousimplementations.

Embodiments are also described above with reference to flow chartillustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) andcomputer program products. Each block of the flow chart illustrationsand/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flow chartillustrations and/or block diagrams, may be implemented by computerprogram instructions. Such instructions may be provided to a processorof a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such thatthe instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer orother programmable data processing apparatus, create means forimplementing the acts specified in the flow chart and/or block diagramblock or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in anon-transitory computer-readable memory that can direct a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to operate in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablememory produce an article of manufacture including instruction meanswhich implement the acts specified in the flow chart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also beloaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatusto cause a series of operations to be performed on the computer or otherprogrammable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process suchthat the instructions which execute on the computer or otherprogrammable apparatus provide steps for implementing the acts specifiedin the flow chart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

Any patents and applications and other references noted above, includingany that may be listed in accompanying filing papers, are incorporatedherein by reference. Aspects of the invention can be modified, ifnecessary, to employ the systems, functions, and concepts of the variousreferences described above to provide yet further implementations of theinvention.

These and other changes can be made to the invention in light of theabove Detailed Description. While the above description describescertain examples of the invention, and describes the best modecontemplated, no matter how detailed the above appears in text, theinvention can be practiced in many ways. Details of the system may varyconsiderably in its specific implementation, while still beingencompassed by the invention disclosed herein. As noted above,particular terminology used when describing certain features or aspectsof the invention should not be taken to imply that the terminology isbeing redefined herein to be restricted to any specific characteristics,features, or aspects of the invention with which that terminology isassociated. In general, the terms used in the following claims shouldnot be construed to limit the invention to the specific examplesdisclosed in the specification, unless the above Detailed Descriptionsection explicitly defines such terms. Accordingly, the actual scope ofthe invention encompasses not only the disclosed examples, but also allequivalent ways of practicing or implementing the invention under theclaims.

To reduce the number of claims, certain aspects of the invention arepresented below in certain claim forms, but the applicant contemplatesthe various aspects of the invention in any number of claim forms. Forexample, while only one aspect of the invention is recited as ameans-plus-function claim under 35 U.S.C. sec. 112(f) (AIA), otheraspects may likewise be embodied as a means-plus-function claim, or inother forms, such as being embodied in a computer-readable medium. Anyclaims intended to be treated under 35 U.S.C. §112(f) will begin withthe words “means for”, but use of the term “for” in any other context isnot intended to invoke treatment under 35 U.S.C. §112(f). Accordingly,the applicant reserves the right to pursue additional claims afterfiling this application, in either this application or in a continuingapplication.

We claim:
 1. A computer-implemented method for escalating an informationmanagement system alert in an information management system, the methodcomprising: receiving an indication of an information management systemoperation failure determining parameters of the information managementsystem operation failure, wherein determining the parameters includesreceiving: a type of information management system operation to beperformed between a first computing device and a second computingdevice, a schedule time window for completion of the informationmanagement system operation, and a throughput estimation technique;estimating throughput between the first computing device and the secondcomputing device, wherein throughput is a rate of transferring data perunit time between a storage device for the first computing device and astorage device for the second computing device, determining whether aninformation management system operation is completable within theschedule time window, including: estimating a size of data to betransferred between the first computing device and the second computingdevice to execute the received type of information management systemoperation, estimating a duration for the type of information managementsystem operation based on the estimated size of data to be transferredand based on the estimated throughput between the first computing deviceand the second computing device, and comparing a duration of theschedule time window with the estimated duration for the type ofinformation management system operation; and providing an informationmanagement system alert if the estimated duration for the type ofinformation management system operation is greater than the duration ofthe schedule time window; determining whether a point of contact isavailable to address the information management system alert by queryingdirectory services attributes for the point of contact, includingquerying, via an application programming interface (API) of a directoryservices application, the directory services attributes for a currentstatus of the point of contact, wherein a point of contact is availablewhen the directory services attributes indicate the current status ofthe point of contact is on a telephone call or not in a meeting orconference, and wherein a point of contact is not available when thedirectory services attributes indicate the current status of the pointof contact is out of the office or in a meeting or conference; whenquerying the directory services attributes determines the point ofcontact is available, repeatedly transmitting the information managementsystem alert to the available point of contact within a predeterminedperiod of time until an acknowledgment is received from the availablepoint of contact; and when an acknowledgment is not received from theavailable point of contact within the predetermined period of time,transmitting the information management system alert to another point ofcontact on one or more lists or hierarchies of points of contact for theinformation management system.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereindetermining the availability of the point of contact includes:determining a location of the point of contact; and determining that thepoint of contact is unavailable if the location of the point of contactexceeds a predetermined distance from a premises of an organization forwhich the information management system is implemented.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the information management system alert is acknowledgedwhen the point of contact logs into a web-based user interface andindicates receipt of the information management system alert, whereinthe web-based user interface is communicatively coupled to informationmanagement system.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the lists orhierarchies of points of contact include supervisors of the point ofcontact.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: schedulinginformation management policy tasks for a client computing device,wherein scheduling the information management policy tasks includespopulating a first queue with information management policy tasks, basedon an information management policy, to be performed by the clientcomputing device using one or more information management systemprocesses or operations, wherein the information management policydefines a data storage policy related to creating secondary copies ofdata from primary copies of data; and scheduling information managementsystem tasks for the client computing device, wherein scheduling theinformation management system includes populating a second queue withthe information management system tasks, wherein the informationmanagement system tasks are tasks to be performed by the clientcomputing device that are not defined by the information managementpolicy and that are not executed by the information management processesor operations.
 6. At least one non-transitory, computer-readable mediumcarrying instructions, which when executed by at least one dataprocessing device, escalates an information management system alert foran information management system, comprising: receiving an indication ofan information management system operation failure; determiningparameters of the information management system operation failure,wherein determining the parameters includes receiving: a type ofinformation management system operation to be performed between a firstcomputing device and a second computing device, a schedule time windowfor completion of the information management system operation, and athroughput estimation technique; estimating throughput between the firstcomputing device and the second computing device, wherein throughput isa rate of transferring data per unit time between a storage device forthe first computing device and a storage device for the second computingdevice, determining whether an information management system operationis completable within the schedule time window, including: estimating asize of data to be transferred between the first computing device andthe second computing device to execute the received type of informationmanagement system operation, estimating a duration for the type ofinformation management system operation based on the estimated size ofdata to be transferred and based on the estimated throughput between thefirst computing device and the second computing device, and comparing aduration of the schedule time window with the estimated duration for thetype of information management system operation; and providing aninformation management system alert if the estimated duration for thetype of information management system operation is greater than theduration of the schedule time window; determining whether a point ofcontact is available to address the information management system alertby querying directory services attributes for the point of contact,including querying, via an application programming interface (API) of adirectory services application, the directory services attributes for acurrent status of the point of contact, wherein the directory servicesattributes are configured by an administrator and define conditions thatconstitute the current status of the point of contact as being availableto address the information management system alert; when querying thedirectory services attributes determines the point of contact isavailable, repeatedly transmitting the information management systemalert to the available point of contact within a predetermined period oftime until an acknowledgment is received from the available point ofcontact; and when an acknowledgment is not received from the availablepoint of contact within the predetermined period of time, transmittingthe information management system alert to another point of contact onone or more lists or hierarchies of points of contact for theinformation management system.
 7. The non-transitory, computer-readablemedium of claim 6, wherein determining the availability of the point ofcontact includes: determining a location of the point of contact; anddetermining that the point of contact is unavailable if the location ofthe point of contact exceeds a predetermined distance from a premises ofan organization for which the information management system isimplemented.
 8. The non-transitory, computer-readable medium of claim 6,wherein determining whether the point of contact is available to addressthe information management system alert includes: determining that thepoint of contact is unavailable when the current status of the point ofcontact indicates that the point of contact is in a meeting, out of theoffice, or on a telephone call.
 9. The non-transitory, computer-readablemedium of claim 6, wherein the information management system alert isacknowledged when the point of contact logs into a web-based userinterface and indicates receipt of the information management systemalert, wherein the web-based user interface is communicatively coupledto information management system.
 10. The non-transitory,computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the lists or hierarchies ofpoints of contact include supervisors of the point of contact.
 11. Asystem for escalating an information management system alert for aninformation management system, the system comprising: at least oneprocessor; means for receiving an indication of an informationmanagement system operation failure; means for determining parameters ofthe information management system operation failure, wherein determiningthe parameters includes receiving: a type of information managementsystem operation to be performed between a first computing device and asecond computing device, a schedule time window for completion of theinformation management system operation, and a throughput estimationtechnique; means for estimating throughput between the first computingdevice and the second computing device, wherein throughput is a rate oftransferring data per unit time between a storage device for the firstcomputing device and a storage device for the second computing device,means for determining whether an information management system operationis completable within the schedule time window, including: estimating asize of data to be transferred between the first computing device andthe second computing device to execute the received type of informationmanagement system operation, estimating a duration for the type ofinformation management system operation based on the estimated size ofdata to be transferred and based on the estimated throughput between thefirst computing device and the second computing device, and comparing aduration of the schedule time window with the estimated duration for thetype of information management system operation; and means for providingan information management system alert if the estimated duration for thetype of information management system operation is greater than theduration of the schedule time window; means for determining whether apoint of contact is available to address the information managementsystem alert by: querying directory services attributes for anavailability status of the point of contact; determining a location ofthe point of contact; and determining that the point of contact isavailable when the location of the point of contact is within apredetermined distance from a premises of an organization for which theinformation management system is implemented; when querying thedirectory services attributes determines the point of contact isavailable; means for repeatedly transmitting the information managementsystem alert to the point of contact within a predetermined period oftime until an acknowledgment is received from the available point ofcontact when querying the directory services attributes determines thepoint of contact is available; and means for transmitting theinformation management system alert to another point of contact on oneor more lists or hierarchies of points of contact for the informationmanagement system when an acknowledgment is not received from theavailable point of contact within the predetermined period of time. 12.The system of claim 11, wherein the means for determining whether thepoint of contact is available to address the information managementsystem alert includes: means for querying an application programminginterface (API) of a directory services application for a status of thepoint of contact; and means for determining that the point of contact isunavailable when the status of the point of contact indicates that thepoint of contact is in a meeting, out of the office, or on a telephonecall.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein the information managementsystem alert is acknowledged when the point of contact logs into aweb-based user interface and indicates receipt of the informationmanagement system alert, wherein the web-based user interface iscommunicatively coupled to information management system.
 14. The systemof claim 11, wherein the lists or hierarchies of points of contactinclude supervisors of the point of contact.
 15. The system of claim 11,wherein determining that the point of contact is available when thelocation of the point of contact is within a predetermined distance froma premises of an organization for which the information managementsystem is implemented includes: acquiring a location of a communicationdevice associated with the point of contact; and updating, via web-basedservices, directory services attributes for the point of contact withthe acquired location of the communication device.